
In 




Class. 
Book. 



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Copyright^ - 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT: 



THE REDEMPTION OF THE 
PRAYER-MEETING. 



0, for a faithful, upward look, 
For the gracious Spirit, first to seal, 

For lasting good this little book, 
And then to open and reveal! 

Upon its journeys, Lord, attend! 

Make it a teacher, guide and friend; 
That thus the loved "sweet hour of prayer y) 

May be yet sweeter everywhere. 



THE REDEMPTION OF THE 
PRAYER-MEETING 



J. GEORGE HALLER, Ph.D. 




CINCINNATI: JENNINGS AND GRAHAM 
NEW YORK: EATON AND MAINS 
NASHVILLE: SMITH AND LAMAR 



COPTRIGHT, 1911, BY 
JENNINGS AND GRAHAM 



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CONTENTS. 



Page 
Foreword 9 

Introduction 11 



part L 

ANALYTICAL AND REMEDIAL. 

The Prayer-meeting Idea 17 

The Hush op the Hour op Prayer 19 

CHAPTER I. 

Saving the Prayer-meeting. 

Does the Prayer-meeting Need Saying? 21 

Why Save the Prayer-meeting? 24 

The Prayer-meeting Can be Saved * 27 

CHAPTER II. 

The Prayer-meeting and the People. 

The People's Part in the Prayer-meeting 30 

Why Men Should Boost the Prayer-meeting 38 

Prayer-meeting " Don'ts " for the Peofle 41 

5 



CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER in. 
The Prayer-meeting Killer 46 

CHAPTER IV. 
Exercises in the Prayer-meeting. 

The Bible in the Prayer-meeting 50 

The Prayer-meeting Prayer 53 

The Music in the Prayer-meeting 59 

The Blackboard in the Prayer-meeting 61 

The Letter Committee 61 

The Prayer-meeting Committee 63 

CHAPTER Y. 

The Leader. 

Helpful Hints for Leaders 70 

Prayer-meeting " Do n'ts " for Leaders 80 



part II. 

WHAT OTHERS SAY. 

CHAPTER I. 

Questions Answered by Prominent Clergymen. 

F. D. Leete, D. D., Maurice Penfield Fikes, D. D., 

Charles S. Mills, D. D., James M. Barkley, D. D., 

Wilbur F. Sheridan, D. D., Frank S. Rowland, 

D. D., Clarence E. Allen, D. D., Rev. Eli Philipps 

Benett 

6 



87 



CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER II. 
Communications from Prominent Clergymen. 

Cortland Myers, D. D 101 

Clarence E. Allen, D. D 102 

John Snape, D. D 104 

Joseph C. Nate, D. D 109 

Charles S. Mills, D. D 113 

William Wirt King, D. D 116 

Decadent Prayer-meetings Redeemed 119 

A Resurrection, Not A Funeral 120 

Bow One Pastor Did It 121 

Enlisted His Men 122 

Admits Failure 123 

part HI. 

PRAYER-MEETING STUDIES WITH SUGGESTIONS. 

A Word of Warning 127 

New Year's Prayer-meeting 129 

The Eternal Word — Two Studies 130 

Simon Zelotes 138 

Favorite Hymns 142 

A Promise Meeting 143 

The Jerusalem Church 146 

The Soul's Renaissance 147 

Heart Irrigation 147 

Skjnday School Prayer-meeting 149 

The Publican's Prayer. 152 

Indecision , 153 

7 



CONTENTS. 

Receiving the Holy Spirit 154 

The Missionary Prayer-meeting 159 

Patriotic Prayer-meeting 163 

Feeding the Five Thousand 165 

A Manly Religion 168 

Steps in Salvation and Service 172 

Important Bible " Comes " . 176 

Looking Back . 178 

Profit and Loss in Religion 180 

A Messenger for Christ 182 

Coming to the Throne 185 

Moses' Choice 189 

Noah's Faith 190 

The Prayer-meeting Weighed in a Balance 192 

Character Studies 194 

Religious Truth in Allegory 196 

The Kind of Men the World is Looking For 202 

The Kind of Women the World is Looking Fop. 206 

Prayer-meeting Topics 209 

A Year's Cycle of Topics 214 



FOREWORD. 



The purpose of this volume is, not alone to 
furnish prayer-meeting talks and programs, but 
to offer the largest possible variety of helpful 
hints and methods which the author and others 
have tested and found to have merit. 

No substitutes are offered for pastoral initi- 
ative and effort. Indeed, there can be no suc- 
cessful substitute. All the wise together could 
not compile prayer-meeting studies that would 
not anesthetize the meeting that is doped with 
them, in lieu of prayerful and painstaking 
preparation and direction. 

Volumes of prayer-meeting sermonettes are 
not wanted, but talks that are germinal, to- 
gether with directions as to their use in con- 
nection with other exercises, are sought by all 
wide-awake pastors. 

The first and second parts of this treatise 
9 



FOEEWOED. 

deal directly with the prayer-meeting itself. 
In the Prayer-meeting Studies of the third part 
the author has sought to avoid prosy preach- 
ing — with what success the reader may judge. 
The "Suggestions" accompanying them will, 
it is modestly believed, add to their value. 
Themes are presented that lie close to daily 
life. There are a few of a more doctrinal hue, 
but always they aim at practical usefulness 
rather than at didactic or apologetic purposes. 
It is to the pastor who is willing to work 
out his own problems, while welcoming sug- 
gestions, that this little volume offers a hand. 
Every such man with God will win. If, by read- 
ing every page, he finds one hint, and only 
one, by which he can improve the mid-week 
service, the writing and the reading will have 
its due reward. 



10 



INTRODUCTION. 



"The Redemption of the Prayer-Meeting ! ' ' 

My friend has hit upon a telling title. No name 
could express more accurately the design and 
scope of the book. And the author has stuck 
to his text. That is not always true of book- 
builders and sermon-makers. 

Many prayer-meetings need redemption. 
They are no good. They fill an hour of space 
each week, but that is about all. They are 
without aim and animation. They lack pith 
and point. They are colorless and cold. They 
seldom yield fruit. Any pen-point, therefore, 
which will call attention to these deplorable 
conditions and suggest any method of redemp- 
tion is entitled to high praise. To diagnose 
the disease is one thing. To prescribe an ade- 
quate remedy is another. Dr. Haller does both. 

11 



INTRODUCTION 

If I were required to put my finger on the 
chief cause of a poor prayer-meeting, I would 
face a perplexing task. But on the whole, I 
would probably write down one word — Monot- 
ony. That trouble is widespread. And it can 
be cured only by a variety. The meeting does 
not need something novel and sensational, but 
something different. No two meetings should 
be quite the same. Prayer-meeting ruts are 
particularly dangerous. "The prayer-meeting 
will be held on Thursday evening, as usual,' ' 
said the minister last Sunday. That is the 
great trouble. A meeting "as usual" will not 
draw. It must be unusual, if it shall act like 
a magnet. An unusual meeting will prove at- 
tractive to sinners and saints, and is a per- 
petual guarantee against empty seats. 

An unusual meeting does not come by 
chance. It does not happen. It is the result 
of preparation. If the average minister would 
give as much attention to preparation for the 
leadership of his weekly devotional meeting as 
he does to preparation for his Sunday morning 

12 



INTRODUCTION 

service, lie would no longer have occasion to 
scold his people for their absence. By empha- 
sizing preparation I do not mean to advocate 
a cnt-and-dried program that crushes out all 
spontaneity, but a preparation which promotes 
originality and freshness and which gives di- 
rection to the deepest stirrings of mind and 
heart. This preparation must be made by pas- 
tor and people. They share responsibility. 
They must unite to make the meeting go. 

I risk nothing in saying that many an anx- 
ious pastor and church member will be aided 
materially in "getting ready for meeting " by 
a careful study of the suggestions and plans in 
the pages that follow. 

The value of much of this material is that 
it discards the merely theoretical and gives first 
place to that which is severely practical. The 
plans which the author recommends have been 
tested in the actual life of the Church. They 
have "worked" and, it is safe to say, will work 
again. There is very little literature covering 

this phase of Church life, and we are under 

13 



INTRODUCTION 

obligations to the author for the industry and 
enthusiasm which has enabled him to gather 
into these pages so much that is practical and 
usable. 

As pastor and district superintendent Dr. 
Haller has been an honorable and useful serv- 
ant of the Church, and we shall be surprised 
if the little volume, in your hands, does not 
prove to be the most valuable contribution of 
his devoted life. 

Buffalo, N. Y. J. F. Berry. 



14 



PART I. 
ANALYTICAL AND REMEDIAL. 



THE PRAYER-MEETING IDEA. 

The prayer-meeting is old. The Christian 
Church has never been wholly without it. In 
the early Church Christians met for prayer 
long before the sermon, as we have it, was 
evolved. Pentecost was the result of a prayer- 
meeting. Peter was delivered out of prison 
through a prayer-meeting (Acts 12:5). The 
somewhat hackneyed phrase, " where prayer 
was wont to be made," grew out of a riverside 
prayer-meeting in Philippi, and one of its fruits 
was the conversion of Lydia, the purple-seller. 
In the time of the persecutions the early 
Christians gathered for prayer in houses, cav- 
erns, and catacombs. Later, when the Church 
became an established ecclesiasticism, the 
prayer-meeting, as an institution, was lost 
sight of, until the Reformation brought it to 
light again, and now for several centuries it 
2 17 



REDEMPTION OF PRAYER-MEETING. 

has been regarded as an essential weekly serv- 
ice by most evangelical denominations. 

Revivals of religion are closely connected 
with the prayer-meeting. Many evolutionary 
movements of a spiritual character have orig- 
inated in it. The foreign missionary move- 
ment had its inception in a prayer-meeting 
held by five young men — Mills, Richards, Rob- 
bins, Loomis, and Green — under a haystack, 
where they sought shelter from a storm, in 
"Williamsburg, 1806. Likewise the great tem- 
perance revival of the past, such as the Murphy 
movement and the Woman's Crusade, were in- 
spired and made effective by meetings ap- 
pointed for earnest supplication to God. To 
this day evangelists who stir communities most 
deeply and have the largest results are those 
who insist upon weeks of special services for 
prayer in advance of their appearance. The 
great revival of 1859 in Ireland, which brought 
10,000 communicants into the Presbyterian fold, 
is acknowledged to have been the result of a 
prayer-meeting held for several months in a 

18 



ANALYTICAL AND EEMEDIAL. 

schoolhouse in Tannybrake. The revivals in 
Scotland and Wales, at about the same time, 
had a similar origin. 

To-day, no less than in the past, the prayer 
service fosters, as nothing else can, that effect- 
iveness and that spiritual fellowship which 
the Creed designates as "the communion of 
saints" — so essential to the life and growth of 
the Church. 

The Hush of the Hour of Prayer. 

Earth's infatuations, 

Duty's urgent prod, 
Daily occupations, 

Leave me now with God ! 

Hour of supplication, 
Time of praise and prayer, 

Thought and consecration — 
God and man are there. 

Exit, care and sighing; 

Enter, peace and power; 
Exit, strife and crying 

From this holy hour! 

Hush, ye clamorous voices, 

Crying unto me ; 
While my heart rejoices 

Here in prayer to be. 

19 



CHAPTEE I 

SAVING THE PKAYEK-MEETING. 

Does the Prayer-meeting Need Saving? 

If the prayer-meeting needs saving, what is 
wrong with it? By no means has it lost all its 
savor. In many instances it is the best thing 
in the Church still. Many prayer-meetings are 
fresh, fervent, vital, scintillating, and attract- 
ive. The Church that has such a prayer-meet- 
ing has many other good things. It has a tact- 
ful pastor, for without such there can be no 
wide-awake prayer-meeting. It has a warm- 
hearted, soul-winning membership. It is ag- 
gressive in evangelism, and carries the sword 
of the Spirit unsheathed. It is likely to have 
devout young people and a good Sunday school. 
0, the refreshings of the "sweet hour of 
prayer," when it is sweet, but, alas, for the un- 
blessed drudgery of it when it isn't! 

21 



REDEMPTION OF PRAYER-MEETING. 

Many prayer-meetings are far from ideal, 
and many more have died unsaved long ago, 
though they are still being "held." Such 
meetings are the deadest thing in the Church, 
whereas they should be the most alive. The 
small attendance and lagging spirit impress 
one as though the service were for aged saints 
alone, who formed the habit of going long ago 
and do not care to break it now. Less than 
one-fourth of the membership are present in 
the average mid-week service, and among the 
absentees are many prominent men and women. 

The author listened to the kind but caustic 
words of a man of large affairs who, after a 
long absence, returned and, in the mid-week 
service, said that though a faithful attendant 
years ago, of late he had lost his interest in 
this service because of its impractical char- 
acter. His interest in religion had not dimin- 
ished, he said, but this particular meeting did 
not appeal to his notion of aggressive Chris- 
tianity. It seemed too much like a frantic 
effort of Christians to have a good time. This 

22 



ANALYTICAL AND EEMEDIAL. 

criticism is upon the lips of thousands of hard- 
headed men, and it expresses the reason for 
their absence from this service. Doubtless the 
lack of interest in spiritual things explains the 
absence of many, but not of all. Frequently 
these absentees are the very men and women 
whose counsel and assistance the pastor never 
seeks in vain, and who welcome every Chris- 
tian duty except that of attending prayer-meet- 
ing. Evidently the meeting does not attract 
them. In the face of this fact, would it not 
be in order to investigate and learn if the meet- 
ing is all it could and should be? Shall we 
cover over the real state of things and go on 
repeating in painful monotony our weekly jere- 
miads about the many absentees and our vain 
assurance, "You will be missed, if not there V 9 
Shall we not rather rally our utmost initiative 
to make this service such that we can say in- 
stead, " You will be most welcome if you come, 
and if you do not, you will miss (not, 'We will 
miss you') the best thing of the week?" 

Thousands of devoted pastors grieve at the 
23 



EEDEMPTION OF PEAYEK-MEETING. 

deadly pace of their prayer-meeting, at the slim 
attendance, the indifferent participation, the 
dull mnsic, and the platitudinous ruttiness of 
the prayers and testimonies. Yes, the prayer- 
meeting needs saving. It must he saved, if it 
is to save others. 

Why Save the Pkayek-meeting? 

If the majority do not care for this service, 
why keep it up? Because many do care for it, 
and all need it ; because, more and more, secret 
and family prayer are falling into disuse ; and 
because no other service is adapted to fill its 
peculiar mission. The class meeting affords 
an hour of spiritual delight to an ever-dimin- 
ishing number. The devotional service of the 
Young People's Society is primarily for the 
young, should not supplant the mid-week serv- 
ice of the Church, and, besides, it has peculiar 
problems of its own. 

The clinical metaphor of the prayer-meeting 
being the thermometer of the Church seems to 
have been universally adopted. Henry Ward 

24 



ANALYTICAL AND EEMEDIAL. 

Beeclier called it the bellows to Sunday — 
something that makes the eloquence and devo- 
tion in the great congregation. Though not 
so delicate an instrument as the thermometer, 
the bellows is much more reviving, and hence 
it more aptly represents the prayer-meeting. 
Save the prayer-meeting because for Chris- 
tians it is the Salvation Army "knee-drill" 
which is to prepare for the public march; the 
weekly council of the general manager with 
his employees for more efficient service; the 
commissariat for provisioning the King's 
army; the forum for the interchange of 
thought; the family hearth for closest Chris- 
tian fellowship; and the holy of holies for the 
nearest possible approach to God through Jesus 
Christ. For the unsaved it is a call to medi- 
tation, penitence, surrender to and faith in 
Christ, and enrollment in His army, the Chris- 
tian Church. To let a service drift and die, 
which means and may accomplish all this, spells 
deterioration and defeat for the Church that 
does it. 

25 



REDEMPTION OF PRAYER-MEETING. 

The mid-week service is to furnish instruc- 
tion, inspiration, and direction for specific 
work, and is not for spiritual delectation only. 
The delectation should never be the end sought, 
but always the result gratuitously added. The 
prayer-meeting that is but an effort of pastor 
and people to have a good time is a fake and 
a failure. If less effort were made to "get a 
blessing' ' and more to get a new vision of 
Christ, of truth, and a new grip on the life 
abundant, on some specific duty, more blessing 
would be the result. Going to prayer-meeting 
just to "get a blessing " is like reading a book 
for the romance of it. It is living to eat and 
eating to tickle the palate. But going to com- 
mune with the King of kings and His people 
for practical purposes, that is eating to live 
and from it there comes the life abundant. 

Blessings that are caught on the wing easily 
flit away, but the blessing that quietly distills 
as the dew, and settles, with or without observa- 
tion, into the conscious and through this into 
the sub-conscious life — that blessing abides. 

26 



ANALYTICAL AND REMEDIAL. 

The Prayer-meetixg Can Be Saved. 

While the author would not boast that he 
has solved the prayer-meeting problem, he 
dares express the conviction that the prayer- 
meeting can be saved, and that any pastor of 
average ability can save it, if he will. There 
are few places where it can not be made a real 
delight. Large numbers, mighty sweep of in- 
tellect and eloquence are not required. Artistic 
singers and fine music are helpful, but not in- 
dispensable. This is pre-eminently the joeople's 
hour — their favored time for prophesying, see- 
ing visions, and dreaming dreams. Of all the 
services of the Church, this one has least excuse 
for being dull. The leader is bound by no fixed 
order of procedure. He can shift as and when 
he wills; can employ any and many methods; 
can draw upon God and man, nature and grace, 
art and religion, literature sacred and secular, 
current events and individual experience, the 
aged and the young, members and non-mem- 
bers. And such a service dull! God wills it 

27 



BEDEMPTION OF PBAYER-MEETING. 

should be dynamic with His Spirit. What, with 
the rich and varied doctrines of our Chris- 
tianity, with the fundamental fact in full force 
that our impressions and knowledge of God are 
not the result of logic, but always of experience, 
with God's people eager, wistful to grow in 
knowledge and grace, with a comfortable room, 
and sixty minutes shut in with God, and with 
an enthusiastic and resourceful pastor — this 
will be the richest, sweetest hour of the week. 
The prayer-meeting can be saved. 

"Lord, what a change within us one short hour, 
Spent in Thy presence will prevail to make ! 
What heavy burdens from our bosoms take, 
What parched ground refresh as with a shower ! 
We kneel, and all around us seems to lower ; 
We rise, and all the distant and the near 
Stands forth in sunny outline brave and clear." 



23 



CHAPTER n. 

THE PRAYER-MEETING AND THE 
PEOPLE. 

The prayer-meeting is pre-eminently the peo- 
ple's meeting, and the people should back it 
up. It is every member's plain duty to do so. 
The author wishes a personal word with the 
reader on this point. 

You are a member of the Church. You love 
it and also your pastor, but perhaps you ignore 
both by avoiding the prayer-meeting. The pas- 
tor may not complain, and, being tactful, will 
not scold, but, depend upon it, he deeply feels 
and keenly regrets your absence. He does not 
wish to bore you and so says little, perhaps, 
but he grieves. If you should unexpectedly 
appear, how it would please him ; and if hence- 
forth you came regularly, how it would encour- 
age him for every task! Why don't you do 

29 



BEDEMPTION OF PKAYEB-MEETING. 

it? Where will one hour count for as much? 
If you accomplished no more than to cheer him, 
that would be well worth the effort. But you 
will accomplish that and much more besides. 
While encouraging others you will get help you 
need yourself. It is a poor Christian that can 
not get some good in any prayer service. If 
the meeting is not to your liking, talk freely 
with your pastor about it, and help him make 
it what it should be. He is probably not so 
self-sufficient as to refuse a suggestion, and, 
perhaps, he can offer one to you. Anyway, 
work together to make the mid-week service the 
most attractive meeting of the Church. You 
will be a better man or woman for doing it. 
Do not think these lines to be a censure, but 
read this volume to the end. It may be you 
will find a hint or two that will enable you to 
assist your pastor in making your prayer-meet- 
ing more efficient. Anyway, try it. 

The People 's Paet in the Pkayee-meeting. 

Many falter at this point, and, though not 
always with a good reason, yet would we not 

30 



ANALYTICAL AND EEMEDIAL. 

apply the words of another, who answers the 
common excuse, "I can not express myself," 
by saying, ' ' That is true only of idiots and par- 
alytics." Doubtless many can not express 
themselves, or make a "public speech." In the 
prayer-meeting, however, they are not expected 
to do this, but simply to take part by question, 
comment, testimony, or prayer. 

"And just that is what I can not do," says 
one. Well, how about that? Jesus says, "Ye 
are My witnesses," and Paul that, "with the 
mouth confession is made unto salvation." Is 
this a purposeless utterance, an unreasonable 
demand? Does Christ ask that which is im- 
possible? How do you hope to obtain salva- 
tion, if not by confession with the mouth? Yes, 
Christ should be confessed in private life, con- 
fessed by deed as well as word. True, but 
also "in the great congregation," the psalmist 
says. You can not do it? Let us see. If you 
believe in Christ as your Savior from sin, "Let 
the redeemed of the Lord say so, whom He 
hath redeemed from the hands of the enemy" 
(Ps. 107: 2). You can, at least, "say so," can 

31 



L 



REDEMPTION OF PRAYER-MEETING. 

you not? Well, that is testifying. "But that 
would be too commonplace," you say? No 
other words of human tongue express as much 
by half. "Commonplace" is it to crown your 
Lord, to declare yourself His disciple? It 
would not seem commonplace to Him, or the 
Church — only to you, and why? Aim at HIS 
praise, and not your own. Eliminate this self- 
ish quest of a crown for your brow in the very 
service that is intended for crowning |Him. 
Mention some fascination about Christ, some 
aspect of His work that interests you, and then 
sit down. You are sincere, mean well, and 
hence must see that your silence at such a 
time, for such a cause, is unjustifiable, because 
unjust to Christ, His Church, to others, and 
yourself. 

Or, you are not a Christian, and you would 
not "pose as one," and so are silent. Be care- 
ful there, good friend, and go not floundering 
by the heavenly goal, so near. This meeting 
is for you. Nothing would help you so much 
as to arise and state your heart's desire for 

32 



ANALYTICAL AND REMEDIAL. 

pardon, purity, and power over sin. Remember 
the only safe thing to do is the honest thing. 
That is not " posing.' ' 

Philosophy as Well as Religion. 

There is philosophy in "taking part," as 
well as religion. First, it is commanded, and 
disobedience is destructive. Then, speaking of 
what we have, or hope to have, increases it. 
By using, expressing, his one pound the servant 
in the parable soon had ten. Failing to use, and 
thus express, his pound, the slothful servant 
lost it. All thought tends to action, but is 
much surer of becoming action, when repeatedly 
expressed. Hence, auto-suggestionists require 
patients and pupils to repeat important decla- 
rations. 

Again, confession with the mouth is unto 
salvation for others, as well as self. It is the 
secret of soul-winning and missionary en- 
deavor. Just why a few vibrating sounds, 
emanating from a believer in the form of words, 
should be so dynamic in the evolution of 
3 33 



BEDEMPTION OF PEAYEE-MEETING. 

Christ's Kingdom, we do not know, but that 
they are dynamic is thoroughly established. 

"I Could Speak, But Not Pray." 

Only if you are not a disciple of Christ and 
do not wish to be, is such a conclusion proper. 
Every Christian can give thanks and seek God's 
grace in public prayer. And can not every 
seeking one express the longing of his heart? 
That is the kind of prayer that makes the angel 
hosts rejoice, and sets the joy-bells ringing in 
believing hearts. It would bring rich gifts to 
you, and what an uplift to the meeting it would 
be ! 0, yes you can pray in public, if you will. 
You can praise God for the glorious gospel that 
turns your weakness into strength, sets your 
feet upon the rock, turns your face toward the 
sun, gives you hope, when reason gives you 
nothing but despair. And you can ask Him to 
take your life into His keeping ; to sanctify the 
very spring of your volitions, emotions, and 
affections ; to direct you in all the way that you 
should go, in view of your great responsibility 

34 



ANALYTICAL AND EEMEDIAL. 

and opportunity ; and to set your hope forever 
on the things invisible. 

"/ Wish I Could Speak and Pray in Public." 

In his "Book of Plans for Young People's 
Religious Gatherings," Amos E. Wells says 
that he is sometimes tempted to be impolite 
when hearing people say they wish they could 
speak or pray in the prayer-meeting. " 'Wish,' 
I want to say. Why, you have not even the 
desire of a wish ! By their fruits ye shall know 
them — wishes as well as everything else. Do 
men gather dumbness from longing, or slug- 
gishness from desire? One hearty wish would 
at least bud into timid little words. Let us not 
cheat ourselves. We never get power of ex- 
pression until we want it." Yes, and when 
we earnestly desire it, we get it. Mr. Wells 
also advises the study of those who have free- 
dom of expression, not, however, to "imitate 
their manner, but their method of obtaining 
their manner. ' ' Had they always this enviable 
gift? No. Well, as they got it, so may you, 

35 



REDEMPTION OF PRAYER-MEETING. 

Preparation to Speak or Pray. 

Many vainly depend upon the promise, "In 
that same hour it shall be given you what ye 
shall speak," to justify and encourage unpre- 
paredness. Whereas this promise was given 
to disciples who spent every moment in the very 
best sort of preparation for the private and 
public defense of their faith. Really, this Scrip- 
ture proves the need of previous preparation 
to have the Spirit's immediate direction. A 
good way of preparation for public prayer or 
testimony is to "count your many blessings," 
to reflect upon your needs, as well as those 
of others, to ponder current events through 
which Providence expresses itself, and to re- 
call certain statements of Holy Writ. 

Let Life Prompt Speech. 

No one can speak so impressively of saving 
human lives as a member of a life-saving crew, 
or any one who has saved lives. If you would 
speak effectively of charity, exercise it; of be- 
nevolence, bestow it ; of the degradation of sin, 

36 



ANALYTICAL AND EEMEDIAL. 

visit the slums; of the uses of affliction, com- 
fort some lonely heart bereft; of the need of 
more personal work, lead some one to Christ 
yourself; of Christians "living beneath their 
privileges," live up to yours ; of the importance 
of Church membership, get some one to join the 
Church. After such preparation your words 
in the prayer service, however imperfectly ar- 
ranged, will be eloquent indeed, The driest of 
dry things is pious talk that does not emanate 
from action. The words that stir most deeply 
in this service fall from the lips of men and 
women who come fresh from the battlefield of 
life where they have tried, midst numberless 
embarrassments, to do their duty. How their 
words strike fire! War theories are tedious, 
but war bulletins never. The science of explo- 
rations is not always inspiring, but the report 
of new discoveries always is — especially in mat- 
ters pertaining to the Kingdom. "I have de- 
clared righteousness in the great congregation. 
I have not refrained my lips, Lord, Thou 
knowest. I have declared Thy faithfulness and 

37 



REDEMPTION OF PRAYER-MEETING. 

Thy salvation. I have not concealed Thy lov- 
ing-kindness and Thy truth from the great con- 
gregation" (Ps. 40: 10, 11). 

Why Men Should Boost the Prayer-meeting. 

In a word, because it is a man's job. The 
model prayer-meeting requires the presence of 
men. The meeting which, as one says, is chiefly 
a service of " songs and sighs, " may be good 
enough for women — though we doubt it — but 
it does not appeal to men. The ideal mid-week 
service concerns itself with all the big things 
of the Kingdom, and it is up to the men to take 
them in hand. Says William T. Ellis, "The 
modern Atlas is a Christian man who bears on 
his heart the world bequeathed to him by his 
Master.' ' There is something truly heroic 
about the mission of the Church and the men 
who essay it. To no other organization, nor to 
all others combined, is there committed a task 
so vast and magnificent as to the Church. What 
is commerce as compared to the task of "teach- 
ing all nations," of directing all government, 

38 



ANALYTICAL AND REMEDIAL. 

supervising the enactment and enforcement of 
righteous laws, safeguarding all human inter- 
ests, and bringing all nations to pay homage 
to the Son of man? 

Professor William James says, "What we 
now need to discover in the social realm is the 
moral equivalent of war." The worst malady 
that threatens us is the dread of hardship and 
the quest of ease. Our safety lies in erecting 
once more what one has called, "The heroic 
standards of life, such as caused the early 
Church to set the world agaze." It takes con- 
secrated manhood to do this, and the prayer- 
meeting offers this consecration. Men's re- 
cent awakening, through the missionary move- 
ment, shows that they have their eyes on the 
full program of Christianity, and that they are 
challenged and charmed by its problems. When 
this new devotion finds vent in the mid-week 
service, a new era will have dawned for the 
Church and the world. 

A terse writer says, "The biggest work in 
the world should be done by the biggest men 

39 



REDEMPTION OF PRAYEE-MEETINGL 

in the world," and the world's biggest men are 
its Christian men. The interests of the King- 
dom are wrapped up with the problems of 
statecraft, commerce, and education, and only- 
consecrated manhood can grapple with them. 
These problems appear everywhere, hence 
every locality needs the manhood which the 
prayer-meeting develops. Joseph Cook said, 
"The nineteenth century made the world one 
neighborhood, the twentieth should make it one 
brotherhood." The prayer-meeting will help 
men to bring this about by engaging their high- 
est powers, and offering a field for their most 
imperial ideals. 

If the men in any Church will . agree to 
support this service, this alone will revolu- 
tionize that Church. Our Brotherhoods could 
do no better thing than this. If they will do 
it, they will become the greatest boon the 
Church has had for centuries. Men, yon can 
do it. In God's name, begin now! Gro at it 
as you go at other things worth doing. Try to 

40 



ANALYTICAL AND REMEDIAL. 

pledge every man to this meeting. In making 
the canvass be sure to count with you those 
who would come if not unavoidably prevented. 
Do not give them the uncomplimentary brand 
of non-attendance. If the character of the 
meeting is unattractive to you, and you can 
not attend it with delight, do so because it is 
the mightiest expedient before the Church to- 
day, and it will become a delight later. 

Prayer-meeting Do st'ts for the People. 

Don't murmur at the dullness of the Church, 
when you ignore the mid-week service. 

Do n't clamor for a change of pastor when you 
have not stood by the one you have on 
prayer-meeting night. 

Do n't wonder why the music is not better when 
your harp is hanging on the willows. 

Do n't ignore the fact that the pastor and others 
are wishing you would speak and pray, 
and are wondering why you do n 't. 

Don't scold or whine in your testimony. Re- 

41 



REDEMPTION OF PRAYER-MEETING. 

member that jeremiads and philippics 
both fall like a killing frost upon the 
blossoms of devotion. 

Don't complain that the attendance at the 
prayer-meeting is so light, unless you 
are doing all you can to increase it. 

Don't complain of the excessive emotion of 
others when you haven't any at all. 

Don't blame the Church for your having few 
acquaintances and friends when you 
avoid the service, where the closest fel- 
lowships are formed. 

Don't think that because you are not now in- 
terested in the prayer-meeting you never 
can be. Interest in and ability to take 
part in such a service are a gift of the 
Spirit and a grace which grows by ex- 
ercise. 

Don't speak or pray in prayer-meeting at all 
unless you can be brief. 

Don't forget that good prayer-meeting follow- 
ers are as necessary as good prayer- 
meeting leaders. 
42 



ANALYTICAL AND KEMEDIAL. 

Do n't parley about this, that what the prayer- 
meeting does for you is a fair measure 
of what you do for it. 

Don't sit and wait in prayer-meeting to see if 
something good may happen, but make 
it happen by having heart and voice in 
what is going on. 

Don't think lightly of the meaning, gravity, 
and consequence of disinterestedness in, 
and even dislike of, the things the mid- 
week service aims to do. 

Don't lose sight of the fact that if you would 
not run dry, but keep up steam and 
power, you must stop regularly for living 
water at the mid-week station of the 
Church. 

Don't take the pastor's place in reproving 
wrong and exposing defects within the 
Church, and do not give him yours in 
testimony and in prayer. 

Don't say, "I don't believe in praying and 
saying more than life proves true, as 
some are doing," but speak in spirit and 
43 



REDEMPTION OF PRAYER-MEETING. 

in truth of what Christ is to you, and 
what you are and wish to be for Him. 

Don't be caught idle in prayer-meeting. Am- 
brose said : "If we must give an account 
for every idle word, beware, lest you 
have to answer also for an idle silence.' ' 

Don't miss this, that no service of the Church 
deals so directly and effectually with 
character and destiny as does the mid- 
week service of Bible-study, song, and 
prayer. 

Don't throw stones in public prayer at the 
pastor, absentees, or the "worldly mem- 
bers ' ' of the Church. They will fall back 
with stunning force upon your own head 
and the meeting. 

Don't go to prayer-meeting in a slipshod, ac- 
cidental way, or because the weather is 
fine and you would like to walk. Go be- 
cause 'tis right and duty. Go on prin- 
ciple. If you don't enjoy it now, go 
until you do. 

44 



ANALYTICAL AND REMEDIAL. 

"We may not climb the heavenly steeps, 
To bring the Lord Christ down. 
In vain we search the lowest deeps, 
For Him no depths can crown. 

But warm, sweet, tender, even yet 

A present help is He ; 
And faith has yet its Olivet, 

And love its Galilee." 

— John G. Whittle r. 



45 



CHAPTEE III. 

THE PKAYEB-MEETING KILLER. 

The terse name of "prayer-meeting killer " 
is given to those who always pray or speak in 
every meeting, and always so long and lazily 
that whatever of interest had been awakened 
before they began is promptly and often ir- 
retrievably suppressed. Sometimes they are 
officials in the Church and think that, therefore, 
they are entitled to more time than any one 
else. Frequently they are men of much in- 
fluence, so that it is unsafe for any one, their 
pastor not excepted, to interfere with their as- 
sumed prerogative. It is said there is at least 
one such in every Church, while some have sev- 
eral. However, this is incorrect, for not all 
Churches are thus afflicted. Often, to be sure, 
they are the most devout of Christians who 

46 



ANALYTICAL AND EEMEDIAL. 

do not realize the harm they do, and would not 
do it if they did. 

Admonitions to be brief are meaningless to 
them. When troubled with such invincibles, 
the author has called on them to pray as early 
in the hour as possible, then took the remain- 
ing time and held the meeting. Despite his 
warnings, their prayer-windlass would unwind 
to the last coil of the rope, when the bucket, 
if there really was one at the other end, was 
so far down that it never came back with re- 
freshing drafts. He explained that prayer 
should begin with the bucket at the bottom and 
consist in bringing it to the surface, and the 
explanation seemed to interest all except those 
for whom it was intended. Then, growing des- 
perate, he admitted that a few, including him- 
self, prayed much too long, in fact, much longer 
than they thought; that they did not mean to 
take the time which belonged to others> and 
that none need think that they — naming the 
offenders with himself — could not pray briefly 
if they tried. ■ 'And now," he proceeded, "we 

47 



REDEMPTION OF PRAYER-MEETING. 

will show you that we can be brief. I will pray 
first, and Brothers Blank will follow, and you 
may note the brevity of our prayers." Then 
followed the shortest prayers the people had 
ever heard, perhaps, from any of the three. 

Candidly, it were better for the same per- 
son to pray two or three times exactly to the 
point, immediately upon all hearts, than to pray 
once much too long, without an obvious point 
or burden, and vainly trying to create one. 
The rule that each person should speak or pray 
just once is without authority or reason. It 
is another of those ancient customs with which 
the prayer-meeting is weighted down — customs 
venerable only for their age, although they 
sometimes awe us, as if they were commanded 
of the Lord. 

For the prayer-meeting-killer, if hints and 
warnings will not avail, a final sure specific is 
for the pastor, thoroughly backed up by his 
people, firmly but kindly to have it out with 
him or her in private conversation. If it must 
be, it is better to offend one than give offense 

48 



ANALYTICAL AND EEMEDIAL. 

to many fifty times a year and, what is worse, 
defeat the purposes of the holy hour of prayer. 

On one occasion the great Spurgeon's pa- 
tience gave way under the long prayer of a 
member of his congregation. Quietly approach- 
ing him, Mr. Spurgeon said, "Brother, you have 
prayed long enough, and if you are offended 
at my telling you, you are a goose. " 

It is said that when Africans "palaver," 
they talk as long as they can stand on one leg, 
and then they stop. This custom has given rise 
in some circles to what is termed one-legged 
testimonies and prayers. Doubtless the plan 
would materially cut down many of them. 



49 



CHAPTEE IV. 
EXEECISES IN THE PBAYEB-MEETING. 

The Bible in the Prayer-meetistg. 

There should be an ample supply of Bibles in 
the prayer-meeting room. Where the "Word of 
God is ignored, or superseded by anything else, 
there is lack of spiritual vigor. He who can 
use it deftly and in the largest variety of ways 
— happy is that pastor and fortunate are his 
people. The leader may read or quote it; or, 
he may designate another to do so, preferably 
beforehand. Or, the lesson may be read or re- 
cited in concert, or references assigned and 
read individually. Or, a number of persons 
may be asked in advance to quote or read cer- 
tain passages selected by or for them and bear- 
ing directly upon the theme to be considered. 
Or, the leader may prepare, say, a dozen ques- 

50 



ANALYTICAL AND KEMEDIAL. 

tions on the topic and ask as many persons 
to come prepared to read or recite answers to 
the questions found in the Bible. In most cases 
it is best to let the people find the answers. 
Another interesting use of the Bible in the 
prayer-meeting is to work out the lesson study, 
based upon certain Scriptures, which the leader 
distributes with the request to read them at 
the right moment. A good illustration may be 
similarly used. A good way to open a meeting 
is to recite a psalm in concert, as it is sure to 
give spiritual tone to the service from the start. 
Sometimes it is well to do this at the close. 
These various methods of using the Book will 
enlist the people in the free use of it, and at 
the same time will secure their participation in 
the exercises of this hour. Do not fear that 
the free use of the Bible will injure your meet- 
ing. Most prayer-meetings use it too little. 

A Prayer-meeting Chapter. 

Announce in advance a chapter of the 
Bible, and ask all to read it carefully and come 

51 



REDEMPTION OF PRAYER-MEETING. 

prepared to name one verse and some lesson 
suggested by it. Teach the people the great 
secret of making discoveries of deep spiritual 
truths by reading the Scriptures slowly and 
prayerfully. Urge them to try it and then to 
report the results for the benefit of others in 
the prayer-meeting. 

An Initial Meeting. 

Ask all to read, or preferably recite, at the 
next meeting some texts beginning with the 
initials of their own names, and to point out 
some lesson contained in them. 

A Promise Meeting. 

Each one is asked in advance to quote a 
fresh promise (see "Promise Meeting," p. 143). 

A Prophecy Meeting. 

Ask each one, or, if there are too many, 
certain ones, to read a prophecy which has been 
fulfilled, pointing out the fulfillment. 

52 



ANALYTICAL AND REMEDIAL. 

The Prayer-meeting Prayer. 

In the main, the prayer of this service is 
not unlike the model prayer in any other place. 
It is humble, simple, brief, earnest but not 
clamorous, submissive but not indifferent, and 
always sweetly trustful. When these virtues 
appear in prayer, the praying one becomes 
an ^Eolian harp, through which the Spirit 
breathes, producing heavenly melodies. One 
thing only is better than hearing such a prayer, 
and that is uttering it yourself. It is like fetch- 
ing a spray of roses fresh from the garden of 
the King. 

Silent Prayer. 

Care is necessary to get good results from 
silent prayer in the prayer-meeting. Indis- 
criminately and mechanically to introduce it is 
meaningless. It should always be for a specific 
purpose which is well understood. It is help- 
ful to grip a climax, deepen an impression, pro- 
duce conviction, and should be asked for only 
when the leader has reason to believe the people 

53 



REDEMPTION OF PRAYER-MEETING. 

will improve the opportunity gladly. Too little 
time is sometimes given silent prayer, tlie 
leader interrupting it with vocal prayer or the 
announcement of a hymn, when it has scarcely 
begun. 

Attitude in Prayer. 
No matter what may be the custom of any 
Church as to the posture during prayer, it will 
be found most helpful occasionally to kneel. 
Some will pray when kneeling who would not 
do so in any other position. The Scriptures 
give examples, but offer no command. God's 
worthies in the ancient Church, the apostles and 
our Savior in the new, were often found upon 
their knees, and sometimes on their faces, while 
in prayer. Beyond this, dogmatizing is unsafe. 

Chain Prayers. 
In some quarters chain prayers are re3om- 
mended to young people's societies. We do 
not see why they might not be used with profit 
in some localities by adults. The chain con- 
sists of sentence prayers, which form the links, 

54 



ANALYTICAL AND REMEDIAL. 

on some specific theme. The leader starts and 
others follow, so far as possible taking up the 
thought of the last preceding link, but none 
conclude with "for Jesus' sake, Amen," which 
is left for the leader, when all have prayed. 

A Prayer Record. 

Why not have a record kept of things espe- 
cially prayed for, and of the answers as they 
come? Think of the many petitions made and 
of the few reports we hear of the many more 
that have been graciously granted. Here is a 
great weakness in the average Church and 
prayer-meeting. True, all Christians should 
tell of the rewards of faithful supplication. 
Yes, but often it is quite forgotten or sup- 
pressed, lest some may think it proud or vain. 
Thus, perhaps, in every meeting God is robbed 
of glory. The asking at His hands was heard 
for months and years, it may be, but the receiv- 
ing was kept a happy secret. This is unwise, 
unfair, and wrong. 

The proper person could not render better 
55 



REDEMPTION OF PRAYER-MEETING. 

service than by keeping careful record of these 
earnest prayers and, with due discretion, some- 
times telling in the prayer-service of the cry 
that God has stilled, the hunger which has been 
appeased, the flood of light that now fills homes 
erstwhile enwrapped in clouds of woe, and of 
the night of sin and strife that has given way to 
the full-orbed day of pardon, peace, and love. 
How this would kindle faith, revive the droop- 
ing spirit of disheartened ones, exalt prayer, 
popularize this service, and crown the Savior 
of men ! 

Such record keeping would not forestall the 
telling of God's goodness by any one at any 
time, and would prevent the irreparable loss 
always entailed by ingratitude and forgetful- 
ness. 

In some Churches such a record is open to 
all. On one page requests for prayer are en- 
tered, and on the other one the answers as they 
come, and telling when and how they came. 
This plan alone, faithfully worked, will bring 
spiritual quickening to any Church. 

56 



ANALYTICAL AND BEMEDIAL. 

The Prayer Itself. 
No rigid rules can be given to which the 
prayer-meeting prayer should always conform. 
Even the admonition, ordinarily wholesome, not 
to be too long, formal, and stereotyped, will, if 
slavishly observed, create the very formality 
which it aims to prevent. However, it is 
always safe to let prayer aim at the things most 
needed at the time. The immediate needs of 
the Church, or any special department in it, 
or definite work being undertaken at the time ; 
or some special need of the community, the 
home, the nation, or in the praying one's own 
life — if these are borne in mind, the prayer 
is sure to be effective. The spirit of hu- 
mility should breathe through it. To foster 
this quality let acknowledgment be made of 
God's greatness, holiness, and goodness in the 
face of man's unworthiness. Always the prayer 
should be trustful, boldly claiming proffered 
mercies. Out of this will flow that joyful praise 
which is the crowning beauty of prayer. 

Prayer should never seek to instruct either 
57 



REDEMPTION OF PRAYER-MEETING. 



God, the pastor, or anybody else. Prayer is 
not for instruction in theology, nor for ex- 
pressing dissent from the pastor, or rebuke of 
neighbors and delinquent Church members. 
"0 Lord, Thou knowest I have studied this 
matter for many years, and therefore can not 
accept the theory advanced by our pastor,' ' said 
one in prayer. Another launched forth into a 
reprimand in prayer of those who did not ad- 
mire him. A well-meaning saint, whose pastor 
frequently quoted from the Revised Version, 
thanked God in prayer-meeting that the Author- 
ized Version was good enough for him, and 
prayed that the "dear pastor " might be saved 
from the snares of the former. A lady, whose 
pastor was in the habit of coming to worship 
a little late according to her clock, but sharp on 
time according to his, gave him a scoring in 
public prayer and prayed that grace might be 
given him to be on time. 

The story is told of a heathen who asked that 
he might never die. The prayer was granted 
by the Fates. But he had forgotten to ask 

58 



ANALYTICAL AND REMEDIAL. 

that health and youth should last forever also, 
and so he lived on till life became a burden. He 
wished to die, but could not. Then he saw that 
he had asked for something he was totally unfit 
to enjoy. But the discovery came too late. 

All such prayers are improper and unwise, 
and frequently they become irreverent, selfish, 
vindictive, pusillanimous, repellent to sensible 
people, and dishonoring to God. 

The Music in the Pkayer-meetietg. 

Here, at last, we have one service that is not 
dependent for its success upon a choir, and that 
is a relief. Nevertheless, the singing is an im- 
portant exercise in this service. It is well that 
hymns be selected with due reference to the 
topic. Often persons in the congregation will 
make wise selections, especially if told before- 
hand that later they will be asked to announce 
a number. A good way is for the leader, when 
announcing a hymn, to name the person who 
will suggest the next one. In some cases a 
number of singers sitting near the organ have 

59 



EEDEMPTION OF PBAYEB-MEETING. 

rendered valuable aid. A special number, such 
as a solo, duet, quartet, or chorus, may be used 
at times with gratifying results in giving em- 
phasis to an important truth. If Hymnals are 
available, in most instances they are prefer- 
able to the undevout and senseless jingles that 
are often used. 

The organist, too, is an important factor in 
this service. Her sympathies should be with 
the whole program of the hour. She should 
enjoy them all. Tactful and sympathetic play- 
ing is a help to singing of the same kind. Pre- 
ludes to familiar hymns and interludes between 
the verses should be avoided. Let the people 
who have a good prayer-meeting organist thank 
the Lord, but also her. How frequently she is 
undervalued ! Perhaps no worker in the Church 
deserves more and receives less praise than 
does the faithful organist. 

Above all else, let all the hymns be used 
as prayers. Songful prayers and prayerful 
songs will go far in making the service what 
it should be. 

60 



ANALYTICAL AND EEMEDIAL. 

The Blackboard in the Prayer-meeting. 

There are many ways of using the black- 
board in the prayer-meeting. Have notes writ- 
ten upon it before the service begins, but hidden 
from view till wanted. Or, have some one write 
what the leader requests. Or, write yourself 
as your remarks proceed, stopping for prayer 
at any point when the Spirit impels. Another 
way is to read the Bible lesson in concert and 
let the people state, after each verse perhaps, 
what to write upon the board. The topic might 
well appear upon the board in every meeting. 
(For further hints, see "Prayer-meeting Stud- 
ies with Suggestions," Part III.) 

The Letter Committee. 

In every prayer-meeting there should be a 
committee to correspond with members who 
have moved away. Think what this would mean 
to the absent friends and also to the meeting, 
and yet how seldom it is done. A former mem- 
ber is far away. None but strangers all about 

61 



REDEMPTION OF PRAYER-MEETING. 

him. Often lie thinks of the old home, the 
Church, and prayer-meeting and all the sacred 
fellowships of other days. He wonders if he 
is still remembered, when lo! a letter comes, 
or a collection of short ones, from members of 
the prayer-meeting circle at home. No, they 
have not forgotten him. Perhaps he is young in 
years or in Christian experience. Who can tell 
the good accomplished as he renews his fealty 
to Christ and his Church? Nor is this all. A 
letter from him is received by the committee 
and read in the next meeting, bringing cheer 
to many hearts. Thousands of young men and 
women who go to the large city would not so 
easily drift from their religious moorings if 
this one little effort were faithfully made and 
oft repeated. In God's name, why is it not 
done? Why are young and old appreciated 
while yet present in the weekly gathering for 
prayer, but speedily forgotten and never again 
referred to, so far as this meeting is concerned, 
as soon as they have moved away? The pas- 
tor's part in this is but to ask if there are any 

62 



ANALYTICAL AND EEMEDIAL. 

communications ; the committee will do the rest, 
and the results will be magical. 

The Prayer-meeting Committee. 

This committee is of the greatest impor- 
tance, and no pastor who has discovered its 
value will ever want to be without it again. 
They are his Advisory Board, who, with him, 
look after every possible need of this service. 
The number constituting it is optional. If 
wisely chosen and often convened for consulta- 
tion, they will relieve the pastor of much anx- 
iety and care in maintaining interest and at- 
tendance. 

Prayer is the Christian's vital breath, 

It is his native air ; 
His watchword at the gate of death ; 

He enters heaven with prayer. 

Prayer is the contrite sinner's voice, 

Keturning from his ways ; 
While angels, looking on, rejoice, 

And cry : " Behold, he prays ! "— (Acts 9: 11.) 



63 



CHAPTER V. 

THE LEADER. 

Moke than any and everybody else the leader 
determines the success or failure of the prayer 
service. The efficient leader is not equally suc- 
cessful always and in all places, since all Chris- 
tians are not equally responsive to good leader- 
ship, but he is sure to have a profitable meet- 
ing. A few essentials of efficient leadership are 
here subjoined. 

An adequate conception of the real purposes 
of the service is the first requisite. These are 
spiritual communion, the perfection of believ- 
ers through new visions of Christ, the Truth, 
and a new grip on life, the saving of the un- 
regenerate, the offering of a forum for the free 
interchange of opinions and the discussion of 
the affairs of the Church, and the fostering of 
the social life in a spiritual atmosphere. 

64 



ANALYTICAL AND EEMEDIAL. 

Careful Preparation is Another Essential. 

The haphazard prayer-meeting does not re- 
quire this. It depends upon the blessing of the 
Lord and the peoples' "taking part," hence 
what need for preparation? But that is not 
leading a meeting: it is only starting it and 
letting it drift, drag, and die. For the leader 
to open the service and then sit down, saying, 
"The meeting is now yours," is to throw the 
reins upon the neck of the steed and let it go 
where it likes. It is easy to tell where it will 
go — to seed or to grass, and though the figure 
be unseemly, it aptly foretells the fate of the 
prayer-meeting whose leader does not "lead." 

Preparation means zealous effort. A lazy 
pastor, or one who thinks it easy to rightly lead 
such a meeting, will fail. There is no easy 
way of doing anything worth while. Only the 
willing worker wins. 

There is a "wonder-plow" which, by an ex- 
tra wheel, renders the holding of the plow- 
handles needless. But there is no such con- 
trivance for running a prayer-meeting. Some 
5 65 



EEDEMPTION OF PKAYEK-MEETING. 

would have the Holy Spirit to be this extra 
wheel, and so let go, but so does He. To have 
the Spirit's guidance, the leader must hold on 
with both his hands until the close. This he 
can not do well if prayer and study has been 
stinted. 

The leader should have at ready command 
a dozen different methods of procedure, and 
never permanently confine himself to one. Not 
only should he study well the lesson, but he 
should provide himself with what may be 
termed relief-measures to save the service 
should it seriously drag. Eegardless of the 
topic, he may propose a question, or, referring 
to a current event, ask how many have read 
about it and what are its lessons. 

Or he may ask the teachers in the Bible 
school to tell of the work in their classes, spe- 
cially mentioning signs of awakening in any 
of the scholars. "What could be more stimu- 
lating to a prayer-meeting. 

Or, the leader may take from his pocket a 
letter or a clipping with a bit of vital news that 

66 



ANALYTICAL AND KEMEDIAL. 

he laid by for a crisis just like this. A tactful 
pastor saved his meeting from collapse by ask- 
ing all to tell him whether God is interested 
in religion more than in anything else. Some 
answered Yes, some No. Presently the query 
was whether they disagreed as to the character 
of God or the nature of religion. The former 
apathy was immediately dissipated. Some 
leaders will adroitly shift in such a plight by 
intuition, but any one can do it by preparation. 

The Meeting May Also Be Over-led. 

This is done when the leader occupies most 
of the time himself. There are those who may, 
with profit, speak at length in giving what is 
called a mid-week lecture. Some Churches may 
prefer this to the ordinary course, but in most 
cases they do not. The meeting is over-led when 
the leader, after exhausting the theme, asks the 
people to make further comment. Dr. Frank 
Otis Ballard likens this to taking up an orange 
and, after squeezing out the juice and very pulp, 
knead it twenty minutes more, then throw it 

67 



EEDEMPTION OF PEAYEE-MEETING. 

to the people, saying, "Now see what you can 
get out of it." Knowing they can get nothing 
out of it, they will not try. If they reach for a 
new orange, fresh from the tree of life, the 
leader calls them back to the old rine. Eesult — 
the meeting falls, and the pastor goes home sick 
at heart, wondering why the people did not 
take part, and sorry that he must have a 
prayer-meeting at all. 

Spiritual preparation is pre-eminently need- 
ful to rightly lead a meeting with such obviously 
spiritual ends. 

Note again the sixfold mission of this serv- 
ice (see above) and be assured that only when 
in immediate touch with God can any man lift 
other hearts to reach this goal. Unless in sweet 
communion with the Lord, his voice will be a 
sounding brass, his lesson merest talk that will 
not stir the soul, and he himself will be a bar 
to every holy purpose of the hour. 

Much that is called "leading others in 
prayer" is really driving them from it. So, 
likewise, he who has charge is said to "lead 

68 



ANALYTICAL AND REMEDIAL. 

the meeting," when, in fact, not having come 
directly from the mount of prayer with Christ, 
he only coaxes, drags, or drives the meeting 
he should lead. Had not the shining face of 
Moses told of being with Jehovah on the Mount, 
his magic words would have proclaimed it. So, 
no matter what the leader's face, if in his words 
there rings the echo of the Mount. It is the 
fragrance of the hills of God, whence he has 
come, that, breathing through his message, 
wooes me thither. 

But pastors are busy men, and some are 
indisposed to welcome suggestions that only 
mean more work, while others gladly pay the 
price and get the goods. Will pastors pray, 
think, read, and write to make each meeting all 
that it should be? This is the crux of the whole 
matter, and at this point the road divides. One 
leads through willing effort which itself be- 
comes a pleasure, to growing power and suc- 
cess; the other, via Comfortville, to mediocre 
results at first, and then to retrogression and 
decay. 

69 



REDEMPTION OF PRAYER-MEETING. 

This volume feign would answer earnest 
pastors' queries, and put a few new levers on 
the fulcrum underneath this problem; but 
Heaven forbid that it should seek to obviate 
the need of honest application to the task of 
most efficient leadership. The man who shrinks 
from prayerful meditation and will not write 
from ten to thirty cards or letters, or do as 
much in other ways, to have a meeting that is 
quickening and sweet, no matter what his talent, 
has failure written on his ministry. 

Helpful Hints foe Leaders. 

1. Do not unite a teachers' meeting with a 
prayer-meeting. 

Except in rare instances, this can not be 
done without injury to both. The interests are 
not sufficiently identical to merge well. Some 
who would attend the one will have no interest 
in the other, and so will stay away from both. 
Usually the prayer-meeting suffers most from 
the merging. However, where the people on 
both sides are well agreed, the venture may be 

70 



ANALYTICAL AND EEMEDIAL. 

made. It is doubtful whether in any case the 
merging will be long successful. The two in- 
terests that are at stake can not well be para- 
mount. The one or the other is likely to have 
pre-eminence. The climax toward which the 
hour should strive, if reached, may mean de- 
feat for the teachers' meeting and vice versa. 

2. Always exalt the Word and the Spirit. 

Nothing is so conducive to spiritual results 
as the deft use of the Scriptures and the honor- 
ing of the Holy Spirit, upon whose presence 
and influence more depends than upon any other 
thing. Eemember that the service may be in- 
teresting and yet a failure. The intellectual 
scintillations may be strong and the instruc- 
tions rich, but if the thought does not awaken 
feeling, stir the heart, and if the Spirit does 
not through it quicken conscience, the real ob- 
jective of the service is not reached. No word 
of man is half so sweet, so quickening, and 
up-to-date as God's, and for His Spirit there 
is no equivalent. Moreover, it is not difficult 

71 



EEDEMPTION OF PRAYER-MEETING. 

to have the Spirit's influence in this service. 
Devout thought, earnest prayer and expectation 
easily secures, and alert co-operation with Him 
through the hour maintains it. It is well for 
those who are of one mind in this matter to 
agree with each other in every meeting from 
the very start, to be en rapport with the Spirit, 
praying for His gracious influence. Prom time 
to time they should renew their covenant to do 
this. "If two of you shall agree as touching one 
thing, it shall be done for them of My Father 
which is in heaven" (Matt. 18:19). The 
prayer-meeting where this is done will be rich 
with grapes, figs, and pomegranates — sample 
fruits of Canaan. 

3. Teach the people to discriminate between 
testimony and comment. 

Witnessing for Christ is different from 
studying the Word and interpreting it, or com- 
menting on spiritual truth and religious activ- 
ity. The latter is wholesome, and the author 
frequently employs it to get diffident ones into 

72 



ANALYTICAL AND REMEDIAL. 

the habit of participating. But we should have 
it clearly understood that comment or exhorta- 
tion can never be a substitute for testimony to 
saving grace and cleansing power, or for the 
confession of a desire to know Christ. It is well 
frequently to call for real testimony, explain- 
ing again and again that you mean witnessing 
to divine grace received or desired. Unless we 
beware at this point we will raise a generation 
of Christians who can talk ad libitum about 
salvation, but are unable to bear witness to it. 
This discrimination wisely made and privately 
explained to some, whose hearts the Lord hath 
opened, will lead them into a better Christian 
experience and life. 

4. Never force testifying or praying, nor up- 
braid the people for seeming slow to take 
part. 

The best Christian does not always feel like 
speaking or praying, and it is no indication of 
backsliding if he does not. To excessively ad- 
monish or rebuke in such cases is confession of 

73 



REDEMPTION OF PRAYER-MEETING. 

defeat, if not an evidence of weakness, and some 
will go away with diminished interest in a serv- 
ice which is confessedly a failure, and in a min- 
ister who shows temper. True, reluctant par- 
ticipation is embarrassing and sometimes fatal 
to the service. Unless prepared for such emer- 
gencies, nothing can be more perplexing to the 
leader than to see his meeting suddenly run 
up against a stone wall of silence. "Why not 
have an understanding with, say, half a dozen 
or more of trusted Christians, promptly to come 
to the rescue in suclran emergency. None need 
know how many have been pledged to do this. 

5. Make prominent the family character of the 

meeting. 

There are many ways of doing this that 
never fail to make the service attractive to the 
people. At some juncture of the meeting, time 
may be given to discuss the affairs of the 
Church, perhaps some new enterprise proposed 
by the officials, which one of these will be glad 
to explain. New members may be introduced 

74 



ANALYTICAL AND EEMEDIAL. 

accompanied by an all-around shaking of hands, 
singing a hymn the while. Members who are 
sick may be mentioned and names taken that 
they may be visited. Letters from absent or 
former members may be read. The getting of 
such letters should be privately encouraged, or 
the Letter Committee may have it in charge. 
Soon the people will look forward to this meet- 
ing as a sort of clearing office, where the latest 
and best news can be obtained and things 
learned that can not well be given to the pro- 
miscuous audience of Sunday, and they will 
flock to it like children to the family fireside. 

6. The pastor's question-drawer. 

Let questions be solicited in advance, and, 
say, fifteen minutes given to answering them. 
The kind of questions desired should be made 
plain when they are called for. Some will write 
questions which they would shrink from asking 
verbally in tfte public service. This exercise 
should not occur too frequently — once in two 
months may be sufficient. 

75 



EEDEMPTION OF PRAYER-MEETING 



7. A Call for Volunteers. 

Another inspirational departure is to occa- 
sionally call for volunteers for special work 
during the week to come, with the understand- 
ing that opportunity will be given in the next 
meeting to report results, should any desire 
to do so. To make sure of volunteers have 
slips at hand on which is written different kinds 
of work. Pass these around and have the peo- 
ple choose the work they will volunteer to do 
by marking it upon the slip, which then is 
handed back. This will never fail to land the 
volunteers. Notice some of the results: the 
prayer-meeting is stimulating Christian activ- 
ity, thus strengthening the workers and the 
Church while pouring helpfulness and blessing 
into other lives. Moreover, the pastor is com- 
ing into closer mutuality with his workers, 
who know his mind is on them all the week, 
and hence their own is upon him. If you meet 
them that week, they will talk of the pastor 
and the work he is doing — they are thinking 
of him. And should you chance to meet the 

76 



ANALYTICAL AND REMEDIAL. 

pastor in that week and fall to talking of his 
Church, promptly he will tell you of the work 
these volunteers are doing — he is thinking of 
them. This is practical, wholesome mutuality 
between members and the pastor. One might 
be much in the company of many Church mem- 
bers and never suspect them of having a pas- 
tor, because they are not engaged with him in 
any particular work. This little digression dur- 
ing the prayer-meeting hour, while achieving 
these results, also vastly enhances the people's 
interest in that service. 

8. Hold many special prayer-meetings. 

Such as New Year's and Christmas and 
Easter prayer-meetings; special meetings on 
the anniversary of prominent men and women 
from whose life and work new inspiration is 
sought; special meetings for missions, the Sun- 
day school, Christian education ; Young Peo- 
ple 's, Old People's, and patriotic prayer-meet- 
ings. This will give variety and elasticity to 
the service, and keep all alert as to what is 

77 



REDEMPTION OF PRAYER-MEETING. 

coming next. It will be easy to have one spe- 
cial prayer-meeting a month. 

It would be well to distribute printed cards 
containing the fifty-two topics for the year and 
indicating in bolder type the special prayer- 
meetings. (A year's cycle of topics is given 
elsewhere.) What a relief this would be in 
many places, what cumulative interest it would 
develop in this service, and how much work and 
worry it would save the pastor! 

Sometimes we are in ruts and do not know 
it, and sometimes, knowing it, are unwilling to 
get out, but rather seek to prove the orthodoxy 
and traditional sacredness of our ruts. "For 
so the fathers did before us," we are prone 
to say. When, as district superintendent, the 
author warned a Church to beware of ruttiness 
and grooves, an official interrupted him with, 
"We enjoy our ruts first-rate; you need not 
worry about us." "Just that is the serious 
thing about your situation; not only are you 
in the ruts up to the hubs, but you are satisfied 

78 



ANALYTICAL AND EEMEDIAL. 

and even glad you 're in," replied the super- 
intendent. Of the mid-week service it may be 
said: 

If in a rut, the more it moves, 
The deeper down it settles in the grooves ; 
Unless it moves to higher ground, 
Which always near the rut is found. 

But if not in the rut, it soon will be, 
Unless it changes tracks quite frequently, 
By special meetings , well arranged, 
The ruts for solid ground are changed. 

9. The Prayer-meeting and Evangelism. 

Though a high evangelistic tension can not 
always be maintained, yet the evangelistic note 
should ring through every prayer-meeting. If 
any real evangelistic work is to be done, the 
mid-week service will have a prominent part in 
it. Frequently encouragement and invitation 
should be given to any who desire help in be- 
coming Christians. Thus the results of conver- 
sation, entreaty, and prayer with the unsaved, 
during the intervening six days, may easily be 
gleaned in the prayer-meeting. If this plan is 

79 



EEDEMPTION OF PRAYER-MEETING. 

systematically and persistently worked, the 
Church will be in a continuous revival. Not 
to do it gives rise to the necessity of an occa- 
sional evangelistic campaign, and while the lat- 
ter is good, the former is better. 

Where a series of such special meetings is 
contemplated, it is well to prepare a four weeks ' 
program for the prayer-meeting, letting it work 
up to a climax with the beginning of the series 
(see "Prayer-meeting Topics," p. 215). For 
such a program the following key-thoughts are 
suggested: 1. The normal necessity of evan- 
gelism. 2. The blessed results of normal evan- 
gelism. 3. Helps to normal evangelism. 4. 
Readiness for normal evangelism. Who is 
ready? Assignment of work, etc. 

Pbayer-meetistg Do jst'ts. 

For Leaders. 

Don't beg the people to come to the meeting; 
rather announce some attractive feature 
for the next one, and encourage the peo- 
ple to say good things about the last one. 
80 



ANALYTICAL AND EEMEDIAL. 

Don't be sure that your meeting is all that it 
could be, for it is n't. 

Don't blame anybody else if your meeting is 
unattractive to many so long as you will 
not accept advice. 

Don't presume to take the place of the Holy 
Spirit as leader, and don't ask Him to 
take yours. He '11 refuse, and then you 
are done for. 

Don't be afraid to ask the people for special 
help. They are wondering why you do 
it all yourself. 

Don't forget the timid ones in your prayer- 
meeting — help them to take some part. 

Don't always speak before the rest — let them 
speak first, and you "sum up." 

Do n't think your main task is to get something 
to say. That is only half ; the other half 
is to get others to say something. 

Don't lose sight of this: that if you lead too 
much and speak too often; soon the peo- 
ple will let go, depend on you for all, 
and then your plight is pitiful indeed, 
6 81 



REDEMPTION OF PRAYER-MEETING. 

Don't wonder will the meeting be a good one, 
or fear that it will not. Having prayed 
and studied, rest assured that it will be — 
expect it. 

Don't claim the promise, "In that same hour 
it shall be given yon what ye shall 
speak, ' ' to excuse your indolence. It was 
not given for lazy folks. 

Don't forget that you should be in a devout 
mood when entering the room, eager to 
begin operations and not dreading them. 
If the engine is not oiled and steam well 
up when it starts, there will be friction 
and squeaky noises plus, but progress 
and power minus. 

Don't talk too much, exhausting the topic. 
That is smashing the nut with a trip- 
hammer and throwing it to the people. 
Say just enough to let the meat appear, 
then give it to those present and they 
will clean it out with avidity. 

Don't expect the Spirit always to adopt your 
plans. Plan well, but in your planning 
82 



ANALYTICAL AND EEMEDIAL. 

leave room for change, compression, ad- 
dition, or abandonment of your plan for 
His. 
Don't get discouraged about your prayer- 
meeting until you have repeatedly tried 
the suggestions in this volume by prov- 
ing, approving, and improving them. 



83 



PART II. 
WHAT OTHERS SAY. 



CHAPTEE L 

QUESTIONS ANSWERED BY PROMINENT 
CLERGYMEN. 

The reader can not fail to be interested in the 
communications and answers which the author 
secured from prominent pastors who have 
achieved success in the prayer-meeting. These 
men represent the Methodist Episcopal, the 
Baptist, the Presbyterian, and the Congrega- 
tional denominations, and they speak with 
authority upon this subject. They are Fred- 
erick D. Leete, D. D., Maurice Penfield Fikes, 
D. D., James M. Barkley, D. D., Frank S. Row- 
land, D. D., of Detroit; Charles S. Mills, D. D., 
and William Wirt King, D. D., of St. Louis; 
Cortland Meyers, D. D., of Boston; W. F. Sher- 
idan, D. D., of Kansas City ; John Snape, D. D., 
of Utica, N. Y.; Clarence E. Allen, D. D., of 
Buffalo ; Joseph C. Nate, D. D., of Jacksonville, 

87 



REDEMPTION OF PRAYER-MEETING. 

111.; and Eli Philipps Benett, of Port Huron, 
Michigan. 

The questions and their answers are tabu- 
lated for easy comparison, as follows : 

1. What, in your opinion, is the greatest prob- 
lem of the prayer-meeting? 

Leete : ' i The leader is the prayer-meeting prob- 
lem. " 

Barkley: "The problem of the prayer-meeting 
is the prayer-meeting." 

Fikes: "Getting the people to attend it." 

Allen: "To make it diverse and yet maintain 
spiritual fervor." 

Sheridan: "The disappearance of the experi- 
mental note from the Churches, and the 
strenuous social life of our people." 

Rowland: "To convince the practical or pro- 
fessional man and woman that it is a real 
help to the highest moral and spiritual 
life." 

Mills: "1. For the pastor to find time for 
adequate preparation. 2. Getting the in- 
88 



WHAT OTHEES SAY. 

terest of the people beyond those most 
devout." 
Benett: "There is no greatest problem of the 
prayer-meeting; the greatest in one place 
may not be known in another. The real 
problem is not a prayer-meeting problem 
at all, but a problem of worldliness that 
manifests itself in the prayer-meeting. 
The problem that looms largest on my 
horizon is that of competent leadership. ' ' 

2. What are some errors in preparing for the 
meeting ? 

Mills: "Haste. Remoteness of theme. Glitter- 
ing generalities in pastor's utterance. 
No system for securing helpful partici- 
pation. " 

Allen: "Haste. Too little prayer. Restricted 
vision — preparing simply for 'the meet- 
ing.' No specific aim." 

Fikes: "Insufficient preparation — making it 
(the preparation) too sermonic, too 
formal. Not thinking of the average 
89 



REDEMPTION OF PRAYER-MEETING. 

man, and planning to avoid sameness in 
successive meetings.' 9 

Sheridan : ' ' The common feeling that anything 
will do for a prayer-meeting talk ; prayer- 
lessness." 

Leete: "Talking too much, covering the sub- 
ject exhaustively; too long and involved 
Scripture lesson ; too much holy tone and 
not enough informality." 

Benett: "Formality, lack of variety, absence 
of intellectual food, monopoly of the time 
by the leader or by a few, failure to work 
up the meeting in pastoral — and pulpit 
work, talking discouragingly about it." 

Barkley: "Subjects lacking vital human inter- 
est; or going to other extreme in trying 
for such topics by having cheap ones. 
Then, droning monotony — lack of prepa- 
ration by laity as well as leader. ' ' 

3. Name some errors in conducting the meet- 
ing. 

Leete: " Insufficient variation in order of ex- 
ercises, methods, postures." 
90 



WHAT OTHERS SAY. 

Rowland : ' ' Sameness — too much leader. ' ' 

Sheridan: "Lack of variety in methods; un- 
attractive music; formality." 

Fikes: "Leader talking too long; promptness 
in opening and closing on the minute." 

Allen: "Formality; conspicuousness of the 
leader; following the same fixed order; 
tardiness in opening and closing ; making 
announcements that neutralize spiritual 
impressions." 

Mills: "1. In pastor: too formal and stiff; too 
long in speech ; too superficial in address. 
2. In people : not enough prayer; too few 
participants ; utterances too pietistic, 
formal, and long." 

4. What order of exercises would you recom- 
mend? 

Mills : ' ' Great variety. ' ' ( See letter next chap- 
ter.) 

Barkley: "We purposely avoid the same order 
for variety, and yet we are not entirely 
free of monotony." 
91 



REDEMPTION OF PRAYER-MEETING. 

Rowland: "I try to have a new program for 

each meeting." 
Fikes: "None in particular. I aim to have 
informality, variety, and especially to 
have order different from Sunday serv- 
ices. ' ' 
Sheridan : ' ' Much song in starting ; two or three 
prayers; Scripture and talk by leader; 
testimony and more prayers. However, 
variety should characterize the method." 
Allen: "Depends upon local conditions. Dif- 
ferent items should be placed in different 
order from time to time. Remarks may 
come anywhere — sometimes at the very 
close, followed by the benediction." 
5. What proportion of your attendance are 
men? 
One answers, i i One-third. ' ' Another, i i One- 
third to one-half. The official member who 
does not attend is the exception." Another 
says, "As good a proportion as women." One 
reports, "Forty per cent," and one says, "On 

an average, about one-half." 

92 



WHAT OTHERS SAY. 

Fortunate pastors are these with so large 
a proportion of men in the mid-week service ! 
6. What proportion of your whole membership 
attend? 

One, the pastor of a large Church, says, 
"A good one-tenth," meaning, of course, the 
attendance at an average service, and not that 
only one-tenth of the total membership attend 
this service at all. Another answers, " One- 
fourth/ ' and still another, "One-fourth more 
or less regularly." One has an attendance of 
one-fourth of his people more or less regularly, 
but rarely more than one-tenth at a single serv- 
ice. One, whose membership is very large, is 
happy to have two-fifths of his people with him 
in the mid-week service, and a close neighbor, 
also with a large membership, reports an av- 
erage attendance of one-third of his members, 
and an occasional attendance of three-fourths ! 
Both the latter are down-town Churches, which 
indicates marked spiritual effectiveness as a re- 
sult of splendid leadership. In the great Pil- 
grim Congregational Church, of St. Louis, Mis- 

93 



REDEMPTION OF PRAYER-MEETING. 

souri, one-third of the resident membership 
regularly or occasionally attend. Immense 
throngs attend the prayer services of Dr. Cort- 
land Meyers, of Boston. The average attend- 
ance in country Churches or in villages, where 
some of the members reside in the country, is 
smaller than in the city because attendance 
there is associated with greater difficulties. 
7. "Why are not more men in our prayer-meet- 
ings? 
Leete : € ' Too busy ; not enough religion. ' ' 
Benett: "Business, lodges, worldliness, diffi- 
culty and failure in making the service 
truly helpful to active men, and, at the 
same time, comforting to old people. " 
Sheridan: "The proportion equals the propor- 
tion in the Church membership, and they 
are often the most active in the service.' ' 
Rowland: "Because the average prayer-meet- 
ing does not appeal to them — they think 
it a waste of time and energy to be pres- 
ent." 

Allen: "Because pastors excuse their absence. 

94 



WHAT OTHERS SAY. 

Because they think them meetings for 
women. Because a sufficiently masculine 
spirit is not put into the way they are 
conducted. Because business affairs are 
given preference." 

Fikes: "The world, the flesh, and the devil. 
Not enough definite work done to enlist 
them personally." 

Mills: "No adequate effort to make meetings 
such as appeals to men, and grips every- 
day life as a man sees it. Also absorp- 
tion on his part in 'the world.' " 

Barkley: "The draft of the world on the ener- 
gies of men ; the desire for rest at home, 
or away from home ; Church loaded down 
with many organizations which the same 
set must operate; men are away from 
other services also; Church work too 
much feminized. ' ' 

8. Have you much Bible study in the prayer- 
meeting? 

Leete : "No Bible study, save incidentally. Ex- 
perience meeting." 
95 



EEDEMPTION OF PEAYER-MEETING. 

Benett: "Exposition of the Scriptures, but not 
properly Bible study. I aim to make it 
distinctly a prayer-meeting." 

Fikes: "Only occasionally. Have taken a 
whole New Testament book, subject by 
subject, but not usually. It is a devo- 
tional meeting. " 

Sheridan: "I give about one-third of the hour 
to the study and exposition of the Bible.' ' 

Mills: "Increasingly. Believe in magnifying 
it, but not in making the prayer-meeting 
a ' class' for Bible study." 

Barkley: "Always a Bible lesson. Sometimes 
a Book study. Often read it in unison, 
or response. Not infrequently the ad- 
dress is broken with questions, which the 
people answer by the lesson words. They 
follow with their Bibles." 

9. Do you usually give a lecture or talk? 
"Usually, though not always a talk," says 

Doctor Sheridan; "the largest meetings I have 

had have been with a series of fourteen nights 

in Isaiah." 

96 



WHAT OTHEES SAY. 

"Always, but brief, pointed, and suggestive; 
a starting-point for others only," says Doctor 
Leete. Doctor Rowland gives a short talk, but 
not to exceed fifteen minutes. Doctor Allen 's 
reply is, "Never a lecture; frequently an in- 
formal, heart-to-heart talk," and Rev. Benett 
usually reads a lesson, gives a brief exposition, 
and applies it to the needs of those present. 
Doctor Mills never gives a lecture or extended 
talk. He regards the service primarily as a lay- 
men 's meeting, and he makes "the people feel 
that they must look after it." Doctor Fikes 
never gives a lecture, sometimes a brief ex- 
position. "The people should make the serv- 
ice," he says. 

10. In reply to inquiry as to special helps or 
methods employed, one answers: 

"An occasional series of addresses; some- 
times a solo or duet; have one of the organiza- 
tions of the Church take charge, as the Brother- 
hood, a Woman's Missionary Society, etc." 

Doctor Rowland has found a series of short 
7 97 



REDEMPTION OF PRAYER-MEETING. 

talks on "The Teachings of Jesus' ' very at- 
tractive and profitable. 

Doctor Allen says he makes good use of sev- 
eral retired preachers, and adds: "I can 
preach on Sunday. I frequently refer to local 
matters observed in pastoral work, and make 
much use of my laymen." 

Doctor Mills: "Nothing sensational or 
spectacular is introduced. Topics always 
timely. Program made out for from two to 
three months in advance, making allowance for 
exceptional events of unusual spiritual signifi- 
cance. One whole month was given to 'The Re- 
ligion of Adolescence,' with sub-topics: 'How 
would you teach a child about God?' 'How 
would you teach control of temper?' 'How 
would you teach moral responsibility?' 'At 
what age should a child begin to attend 
Church?' " 

A potent factor in Doctor Mills' prayer- 
meeting is the cultivation of the family spirit. 
At almost every meeting the sick of the parish 
are mentioned by name and prayer is offered 

98 



WHAT OTHERS SAY. 

for them. All who are in any misfortune or 
sorrow are remembered. Important letters re- 
ceived by the pastor are read. In fact, any in- 
cident of vital importance to the Church is men- 
tioned in a devout spirit. Thus this service 
becomes the social attraction of the Church. 
The pastor never takes chances on what the 
meeting will be, and who will take part. He 
plans for it in advance, believing that the Holy 
Spirit can work through a well-prepared pro- 
gram as well as, or even better, than without it. 
Doctor Fikes has "no special helps and 
methods. ' ' He believes ' ' the ordinary methods, 
if rightly used, are sufficient." 

11. How much time do you give to prayer, 
testimony, and Bible study respectively? 

Eowland: "I have no fixed schedule for the 
various parts.' ' 

Sheridan: "It varies. Sometimes all prayer 

and song; at other times a brief prayer 

service and much testimony. More often 

the whole service divides into one-third 

99 



REDEMPTION OF PRAYER-MEETING. 

for prayer and song, one-third for Bible 
study and address, and one-third for tes- 
timony. ' ' 
In Doctor Mills' service the first half -hour 
is given to song, prayer, Scripture reading, re- 
sponsive reading, and the reception and dis- 
missal of members. After this the subject is 
announced and the people take it up. The pas- 
tor usually does not speak until the last, thus 
giving the people an opportunity before the 
subject is exhausted. 

Doctor Barkley is planning to introduce re- 
views of books that have a vital religious in- 
terest, as for example: "Twice-born Men," 
by Harold Begbie; "The Unrealized Logic of 
Religion," by Fitchett. He has also had a 
"Pastor's Social Evening" once a month, when, 
after the service, ladies who had not been other- 
wise drawn into Church activity served tea (or 
coffee) and wafers, nothing more. This af- 
forded a pleasant social half -hour. 



100 



CHAPTER II. 

COMMUNICATIONS FROM PROMINENT 
CLERGYMEN. 

A Clarion Note from Tremont Temple Bap- 
tist Church, Boston. 

The prayer-meeting is at the very heart of the 
Church life and service. The spiritual, soul- 
winning Church is always a prayer-meeting 
Church. This is the test of its value. "By 
their fruits ye shall know them. ' ' If it is true 
that the prayer-meeting is less in attendance 
and success than formerly, it is not true that 
it is less needed. But the fact is that there 
are just as large and as good prayer-meetings 
as the Church ever knew. Last week there were 
five hundred persons at our prayer-meetings, 
and great spiritual power was manifest. Wher- 

101 



EEDEMPTION OF PRAYER-MEETING. 

ever prayer and the old gospel truths are a 
reality there can be a meeting crowded with 
numbers and filled with the Spirit. 

Cortland Meyers. 

Words That Ring True. 

Here are pungent words from the pen of 
Doctor Clarence E. Allen, Methodist Episcopal, 
Buffalo, New York, concerning the absence of 
many men from the mid-week meeting : 

"Industrial conditions frequently prevent 
men from attending any service during the 
week. Men like variety. When the prayer- 
meeting gets into a rut — the same old prayers 
and testimonies by the same persons — men find 
no pleasure in it. I am not excusing absence 
on this ground; only explaining it. Strange 
to say, some remain away because they have 
the notion that they will be i called on,' class- 
meeting fashion. 

"I believe that the idea that we are to do 
more than pray and hold services for prayer, 
emphasized unduly in our day, is bearing fruit 

102 



WHAT OTHERS SAY. 

in the tendency of some men to think that there 
is no call for prayer-meetings whatever. 
Prayer can only be a foundation, but this con- 
tinual harping upon the string of 'practical 
service/ is as silly as it is false. The trouble 
with the Church is that we do not pray enough. 

"Men are sometimes kept from the prayer- 
meeting because of professionalism in the min- 
istry. The minister thinks he must defend the 
faith in the presence of Christians. If the day 
for apologetics is not passed, our religion can 
never find a substantial foundation. If men 
appreciated that they could go to this service 
and themselves work out their own practical 
problems, as they understand them, the 
preacher understanding them, too, or keeping 
still about them, they would go more frequently. 

"But I suppose the real reason why men 
do not attend prayer-meeting as they should 
is indifference. However, on the whole, I think 
men are taking much greater interest in the 
Church than ever before. Their interest is ob- 
jective rather than subjective. This is a cle- 

103 



REDEMPTION OF PRAYER-MEETING. 

cided advance over stanza 4, Hymn 64, The 
Methodist Hymnal: 

" ' My willing soul would stay 
In such a frame as this, 
And sit and sing itself away 
To everlasting bliss. '" 

Refreshingly Original, Strikingly Naive, 
Unfailingly Helpful. 

Such indeed are the following words of Rev. 
John Snape, D. D., Tabernacle Baptist, of 
Utica, New York. All who are partial to the 
prayer service, and even those who are not, will 
admire the force and unconventional freshness 
of his conclusions, which, the author is assured, 
are "not theory, but the record of personal 
practice." Doctor Snape writes: 

"A good prayer-meeting mood is essential 
to a good prayer-meeting, and this is created 
by the spirit and emphasis put in it and upon it 
by the pastor. If the single hour of the week, 
specifically recognized as the people's hour for 
spiritual improvement, is appropriated by one 
man in the exploitation of exegesis, or in the 

104 



WHAT OTHEES SAY. 

discussion of political reforms, or in delibera- 
tions about the hygienic conditions in the houses 
of the masses, then that hour is misappropri- 
ated and diverted from its highest purposes. 
The mid-week meeting is not intended so much 
for the masses as for the benefit of the indi- 
vidual. It is ilot an hour for fine interpretation, 
but a time for devotional uplift. A sermonette 
in this service may be only a poor diversion, 
but a sermon is a punishable misdemeanor. 

"The prayer-meeting should be character- 
ized by a praiseful opening, unexegetical pro- 
gression, unanimous participation, and a 
prompt closing. The leader, who should always 
be the pastor, should not strive at projecting 
quotable sentences. Whatever he says should 
be worth forgetting. On Sundays he may say 
things the people can't forget; in the prayer- 
meeting he should say things they can't re- 
member. He should be out of sight, as far 
as possible. It is not the pastor's, but the 
people's hour. 

"Much is said about ' sameness' in this 
105 



EEDEMPTION OF PRAYER-MEETING. 

service. It is the firm conviction of one man 
that the momentum of many prayer-meetings 
is lost by too much variety. Whatever else the 
meeting is, it should never be other than devo- 
tional. It would be difficult to build up a great 
Church prayer-meeting with the bricks of Bib- 
lical criticism, or the masonry of systematic 
theology, or the hard wood of Eomans, or the 
fine finish of popular lectures — it can be done 
only by a persistent insistance on devotion. 

"The prayer-meeting not only quickens the 
Church life; it discovers it. It not only culti- 
vates the Church's prayer-habit; it expresses 
the Church's prayer-life. Not many earnest, 
private pray-ers habitually neglect social 
prayer. It is the business of the minister to 
foster and focus this force, and how to do it 
is likely to be his greatest problem. 

"The pastor must be a prayer-meeting en- 
thusiast. In season, out of season, at all 
seasons he must emphasize the importance of 
that hour. He need not fear the prominence 
of the personal element in it. Let him often 

106 



WHAT OTHERS SAY. 

pray for people by name, let him often call for 
personal prayer requests, let him not look with 
aversion on emotion — emotion is a sign of life. 

"The pastor should invite and expect the 
co-operation of his men in this service. They 
will respond, if the burden of it is laid on them. 
Recently in the Church of which the writer is 
pastor there was appointed a prayer-meeting 
committee. This committee made out lists of 
men and handed the lists to other men with in- 
structions to get them out to the mid-week serv- 
ice. By personal solicitation, by letter, by 
phone men went for men and — got them. 

"A simple plan which could be worked in 
any community, but probably more successfully 
in cities, has been the giving of prayer-meeting 
suppers before the hour of the prayer-meeting. 
A committee of fifteen women is appointed, 
whose task it is to furnish, serve, and pay for 
the supper one night. This costs each woman 
about seventy-five cents, and carries with it, 
for the husband, the right to attend the other 
suppers without further expense. The plan 

107 



REDEMPTION OF PRAYER-MEETING. 

continues for three months, and is sometimes 
followed by a ' reciprocity supper/ prepared 
and served by the men. As many as a hun- 
dred men have come to supper and have after- 
ward gone in a body to the prayer-meeting. 
The plan increased the attendance, both of men 
and women. Men who live too far from the 
church to return for the meeting come directly 
from their work, and wives who otherwise might 
be obliged to remain at home to cook, join their 
husbands at the church and thus also are able 
to attend the prayer-meeting. The half-hour 
before the service affords the pastor an oppor- 
tunity for better acquaintance and comrade- 
ship with his men. 

"When the members of the Church come to 
appreciate the prayer-meeting more than the 
Sunday services, they have given the pastor the 
finest compliment. Johst Sn ape. ' ' 



108 



WHAT OTHEES SAY. 

Spakks from Doctor Joseph C. Nate's Prayer- 
Meeting Anvil. 

The following communication from Joseph 
C. Nate, D. D., Methodist Episcopal, Jackson- 
ville, Illinois, is crammed with helpful hints: 

"It is a pleasure to make any suggestions 
to you which I am able to offer to help our 
prayer-meeting work ; I feel that the special at- 
tention, such as you are giving to it now, is 
exactly what the Church needs. 

"Among the few suggestions that I will ven- 
ture to offer is neat printing and the distri- 
bution of prayer-meeting topics for a quarter 
in advance. I like to print them in quantities 
and redistribute them from time to time. I 
usually enclose one in every letter mailed to 
my people. In this connection, an occasional 
pastoral letter, laying the prayer service upon 
the hearts of the people, will stimulate at- 
tendance. 

"The most marked increase in attendance 
with which I have been favored has been at 

109 



EEDEMPTION OF PKAYER-MEETING. 

two different times in my ministry following 
successful revivals. Other revival seasons have 
improved the attendance, but at these two times 
it increased largely and the increase was well 
sustained. 

" Another simple method which I have found 
effective was to put one meeting of each month 
under the care and direction of some society 
of the Church, as the Ladies' Aid, Brother- 
hood, Sunday School, Woman's Missionary So- 
ciety. The head of the society selected was 
usually the leader of the service, assisted by 
the pastor. The conditions, needs, and work of 
the particular society were made subjects of 
special discussion and prayer. Suitable news- 
paper notices on the day of the meeting, worked 
in, if possible, as a bright news item, as well 
as dignified and earnest reference to the meet- 
ing on Sunday, have seemed to me to help the 
meeting. Our people are inclined to pay careful 
attention to those features of our Church life 
to which we pay careful attention. Sometimes 
I use the back of my calling card for a little 

110 



WHAT OTHERS SAY. 

printed invitation, suggestive and urgent, to 
certain services of the Church. 

"I recognize the fact that after we have done 
our best to get the people into the meeting, 
a larger problem is before us in making the 
latter so bright and interesting, as well as 
deeply helpful spiritually, that we can keep 
them there. To this end, in general, I think 
of the meeting especially as a service of prayer. 
"With some exceptions, which my people always 
note as such, I make the hour largely one of 
prayer, praise, and spiritual meaning. It does 
not seem to me to be the time best adapted 
for Bible study, although, as our pastorates 
lengthen, a pleasant change is effected by per- 
mitting the themes of a quarter, even of an 
entire year, to take on something of the Scrip- 
ture study idea. In fact, it is perhaps always 
helpful for the leader to suggest some little 
matter along this line as appealing to some, or 
giving them a starting-point, who might not get 
hold of the meeting otherwise. What I mean to 
emphasize is, that the Scripture study idea is, 

111 



REDEMPTION OF PRAYER-MEETING. 

at least, secondary. It is rather, to me, a time 
when the men will come in from the shops and 
offices, and women from the work of the day, 
seeking again a renewal of their heart's pur- 
pose to live with and for Christ. Such men 
and women come to us craving a fresh anchor- 
age, a brightening of faith and consecration, — 
to realize again that God is good and that He 
is God! 

"I will not dwell on the smaller, incidental 
details of the management of the meeting it- 
self. I write questions upon the blackboard. 
I mail questions for discussion to selected in- 
dividuals beforehand. Sometimes I close with 
an altar service, and sometimes have nothing 
but songs and prayer. At times it is a happy 
change to devote almost the whole hour to the 
Hymnal, and close with hearty prayers of grati- 
tude for the spirit of song. By the way, the 
only song-book I know how to use successfully 
in our meetings is the Church Hymnal. 

"You will pardon the personal vein of the 
remarks, for you have made me feel that you 

112 



WHAT OTHEES SAY. 

want my own experience. Since I am giving 
this, I must say in conclusion that when I have 
done my best and have exhausted all my re- 
sources, I have felt that it all ought to have 
been much better and more effective, and that 
our whole prayer-meeting life, as a Church, 
perhaps, must be made more paramount and 
triumphant among us than most of us have been 
able to have it. For this reason I shall be 
among the many pastors who will deeply ap- 
preciate the help you are trying to bring us, 
and shall feel permanently indebted to you 
for it. Joseph C. Nate." 

The Language of Expekience. 

A further word from Doctor Charles S. 
Mills, of Pilgrim Congregational Church, St. 
Louis, will be the more welcome because of his 
success in the prayer-meeting. We are assured 
that his people look forward to this service 
with expectation and delight, and that out of 
it flow continually streams of living water. 

"It is difficult to answer specifically some 
8 113 



REDEMPTION OF PRAYER-MEETING. 

of the questions as you put them. I do not 
know that my answers will be very illuminating, 
but it is all I can do under the stress of my 
work. 

"Let me say in general, I believe with all 
my heart in the prayer-meeting; I believe in 
the old-fashioned prayer-meeting; that is, mak- 
ing it largely a laymen's meeting, rather than 
a lecture by the pastor. The latter plan, I be- 
lieve, however able the lecture, is far more 
likely to fail than to succeed; in fact, I have 
never known of such a meeting which I con- 
sidered a success. 

"The prayer-meeting is the great oppor- 
tunity of developing laymen and promoting that 
social spirit which blends so well with the spir- 
itual development of the Church. Oftentimes 
the pastor must do ten times as much work to 
get his people to participate, as if he did it 
himself, but the results are mightily worth 
the outlay. If I should briefly name some ideals 
of the prayer-meeting I should say: 1. The 
development of the spiritual life. 2. Develop- 

114 



WHAT OTHERS SAY. 

merit of the family spirit — bringing into the 
meeting all items of news in the family life, 
especially afflictions or special burdens, which 
may appropriately be mentioned. 3. The par- 
ticipation of a large number of individuals, so 
that the meeting never becomes a series of 
homilies by a few people. 4. The promotion 
of vital interest on the part of the Church, 
choosing themes calculated to arouse such in- 
terest, and illuminating them by all sidelights 
possible. 5. The constant study of variety of 
method. For example, two or three times in 
the last year we have covered several weeks 
with a single theme. One of the most pro- 
ductive of these was 'The Religion of Ado- 
descence' (see preceding chapter), on which we 
had illuminating contributions from teachers of 
the public schools, from a judge of the Juvenile 
Court, from kindergartners, mothers, and oth- 
ers. Another was 'The Relation of Pilgrim 
Church, with its immense membership and large 
resources, to the down-town section/ More re- 
cently we have undertaken a trenchant study of 

115 



REDEMPTION OF PRAYER-MEETING. 

the shorter Epistles. We began with Galatians, 
then took Ephesians, giving several weeks to 
each and, without using a hard-and-fast plan, 
though with program outlined in advance, we 
took as much time as seemed desirable to cover 
the field. Each Epistle was studied in the en- 
vironment of its writing, the circumstances of 
its author, the qualities or defects of those to 
whom it was written, and above all, the appli- 
cation of its teachings to present-day condi- 
tions. We purpose taking Philippians and 
Colossians in the same way. In taking such 
Bible study, however, I believe we should avoid 
making it technical and so confining it as to 
arrest the spontaneity of the service. This 
should always be kept an hour of conference 
and prayer. Chakles S. Mills. " 

A Layman 's Advice. 

William Wirt King, D. D., Methodist Epis- 
copal, of St. Louis, Missouri, in the Methodist 
Review, relates the following: 

"In a certain Church with a large member- 
116 



WHAT OTHEKS SAY. 

ship and widely known for its achievements 
in many directions, the prayer-meeting had al- 
ways been a poor, neglected, uninteresting, and 
unprofitable service. With a membership of 
some twelve hundred, the average attendance 
was from forty to fifty. The same people, called 
the prayer-meeting crowd, attended from week 
to week, and all appeals from the pulpit and 
in private failed to bring about any change. 
All other services in the Church were stirring 
and enthusiastic; this one was dead, and 
haunted the pastor like a nightmare. 

"One day a strong, intelligent, and devoted 
layman, in conversation with the pastor about 
the failure of this service, frankly but kindly 
expressed his view as to the reason for it, which 
was that the pastor took no special interest in 
it himself, as a result of which the people 
thought they would get nothing when they came 
and missed nothing worth while when they 
stayed away. He insisted that if the same con- 
scientious and intelligent work were done in 
and for the prayer-meeting, it could be made 

117 



REDEMPTION OF PRAYER-MEETING. 

as great a service as any in the Church. As 
a result of this conversation, a plan was re- 
solved upon looking for as definite and prac- 
tical work in the prayer-meeting as anywhere 
else. A certain connected study was taken up 
running through the whole year. Then the 
people were asked to aid in this special work 
whenever called upon, in the way of papers on 
special topics, and discussion of special themes 
connected with the general study. The sub- 
ject for the year was ' Studies in the Early 
Church,' which was in reality a study of the 
Acts of the Apostles and most of the Epistles. 
Sixty persons, most of whom never attended 
the prayer-meeting before, were pledged to help 
in this work for one year, whenever called upon, 
with the assurance that they would never be 
embarrassed by being asked to speak, without 
previous notice. With surprising promptness 
and cheerfulness nearly every one who was 
approached responded favorably. Then a letter 
was sent to nearly all the members explaining 
the plan. The attendance of the first service 

118 



WHAT OTHERS SAY. 

under the new order, instead of being forty or 
fifty, was two hundred and fifty! From that 
time on the prayer-meeting room was always 
full of expectant people. The thing that nobody 
believed could be done, had been done." 

Decadent Prayer-meetings that Have Been 
Eedeemed. 

We have learned of a pastor who solved 
the prayer-meeting problem by organizing a 
Eeligious Study Club with this threefold pur- 
pose : 1. Uplift in worship ; 2. Growth in depth 
and beauty of character; 3. Application of 
Christian principles to modern problems, and 
Christian standards to modern life. Each mem- 
ber proposes — there is no promise — 1. To at- 
tend as regularly as circumstances will per- 
mit; 2. To study the lesson assigned each week 
as he has opportunity; 3. To add as much as 
possible to the helpfulness of the meeting; 4. 
To do what he can to stimulate others to at- 
tend. 



119 



REDEMPTION OF PRAYER-MEETING. 

A Resurrection, Not a Funeral. 

One writes that his prayer-meeting had 
joined the great majority and had become to 
the many a matter of indifference, and to the 
faithful few a painful problem. He asked his 
congregation whether it might not be best to 
declare it dead and proceed to the burial, but 
as none offered to serve as pallbearers, restora- 
tives were applied instead. Having heard of a 
Western Church that had similar troubles, the 
pastor wrote for the remedy that brought re- 
lief there. Then the following pledge was cir- 
culated for signatures: 

"I hereby promise to attend the Thursday 

evening service of Church, in , at 

least twelve times during the year, unless pre- 
vented by circumstances that render it impos- 
sible. This promise is not binding unless 100 
(the number can be made larger or smaller) 
such pledges are secured within 30 days. 

"Signed. " 

120 






WHAT OTHERS SAY. 

One hundred and twenty persons signed the 
agreement, which gave assurance of a good av- 
erage attendance, provided, as the officials ex- 
pressed it, "the service could be made worth 
coming to." 

Exactly that is the crux of the whole matter : 
"to make the service worth coming to." There 
are many ways of temporarily increasing the 
attendance, but only when the character of the 
meeting is of the right sort will it be perma- 
nent. 

How One Pastoe Did It. 

In Church, of , the prayer- 
meeting for years was like a well gone dry, 
where people still keep coming for water, un- 
winding the windlass and letting the bucket go 
banging against the stones with which the well 
is walled, down to the bottom and up again, — 
always empty and always accompanied by the 
squeaking of the old-time apparatus. Well, 
it was a prayer-meeting of this sort that smote 
the heart of the new pastor, who had just ar- 

121 



REDEMPTION OF PRAYER-MEETING. 

rived. Forthwith he betook himself to study 
and prayer for the redemption of this service, 
with the gratifying result that within four 
months it was nearly as popular as the Sunday 
service. The attendance had doubled and, best 
of all, the interest and spiritual delight of the 
meeting made it the longed-for event of the 
week. How did he do it? By talking little 
about it in the pulpit and much in private ; by 
asking individuals to attend, if not every serv- 
ice, once, twice, or three times a month; by 
emphasizing the home aspect of the service, so 
that attendants would always wish to come 
again. 

Enlisted His Men. 

"I greatly missed my men at the prayer- 
meeting, which did not attract them at all," 
writes an aggressive and tactful pastor. They 
were of a vivacious, business turn of mind, and 
would not invest in a thing that offered no re- 
turns, except the appearance of being pious. 
When they saw the pastor did not summarily 

122 



WHAT OTHEES SAY. 

condemn their absence from the prayer-meet- 
ing, but sympathized with them and wanted 
their assistance in the service, their interest 
was aroused at once. When he showed them 
how they all could help to make the meeting 
what they thought it should be, they pledged 
him their support and kept their word, like 
men. He was careful to give them some im- 
portant part, which made the service mean more 
to them and also made it more attractive to 
others. 

Admits Failuee. 

One admits his failure thus: "Somehow, 
I fell into the snare of thinking that intensely 
spiritual exercises repel those of an intellectual 
turn and also those not in the habit of taking 
public part in witnessing and prayer. Accord- 
ingly, I sought to introduce that which appealed 
to the intellect and pertained more especially to 
the building of Zion's outer walls. Imagine 
my pain to see my prayer-meeting degenerating 
into what was little more than a religious club, 

123 



EEDEMPTION OF PRAYER-MEETING. 

with no appeal to conscience, no striving for 
high spiritual ideals, no conscious sense of the 
divine presence. The religious form of the 
service had to be and was maintained. Into 
this historic mold I found it hard to pour my 
cold material. As a result, the meeting was a 
double failure, being neither a religious nor an 
intellectual success. I found it difficult to make 
a change, but did at last, and now my people 
feel with me that spiritual things do not repel, 
but rather fascinate, thrill, and make men feel 
like taking up the fight, with strength renewed 
and weapons newly burnished and made keen 
in the smithy of the hour of prayer. Now we 
aim to have both mind and heart active and at 
its very best, and our mid-week service is rich 
and sweet once more. ' ' 



124 



PAET III. 

PRAYER-MEETING STUDIES WITH SUG- 
GESTIONS. 



A WORD OF WARNING. 

Beware of making the address or study the 
chief or only attraction of the hour; otherwise 
it will not be a "prayer-meeting." However 
interesting and good, the address alone can not 
meet the full requirements of the service. 
First, last, and every minute it is to be an hour 
of prayer, and it must be the people's prayers 
that make it such. Thus only can it be a 
potent, spiritual event. This one thing for- 
gotten, though all the helps and hints contained 
within these lids were well improved, yet will 
the service wane until it is at best a mere re- 
ligious forum. Frankly, however, better have 
it a religious forum, well attended, bristling 
with interest, looked forward to with gladness, 
and left with reluctance at the close, than to 
have it a sacred mummy, bequeathed by faith- 
ful fathers to their surviving heirs, who, not 

127 



EEDEMPTION OF PRAYER-MEETING. 

having bowed the knee to Baal by letting in 
the modern light, believe themselves the right- 
ful guardians of a service which, they are sat- 
isfied to know, is just as it used to be save that 
the people do not attend it any more. Ten times 
better to have the former than the latter, but, 
better still, have the former baptized in spir- 
itual fervor and crowned with the victory of 
grace in individual hearts. 

Occasionally it is well to omit the lecture, 
study, or address, and give the hour to spir- 
itual conversation, reports of work accom- 
plished, pointing out work that should be done, 
and asking divine blessing upon it. 

But always, when an address or talk is 
given, it should represent the leader's best ef- 
fort and show careful preparation. The notion 
that " anything will do" to give the few that 
come is sure to make the attendance, already 
small, still smaller. Ill prepared leadership 
has hilled more prayer-meetings than any other 
one thing. 



128 



PRAYER-MEETING STUDIES. 

NEW YEAR'S PRAYER-MEETING. 

It is not difficult to have two interesting 
prayer-meetings at this season of the year — 
one on the last prayer-meeting night of the old 
and one on the first of the new year. 

Suggestions of the Old Year to the New, Les- 
sons for the Aged and the Young, Warnings, 
Memories of the Old Year — Sad and Pleas- 
ant, Profits of the Old Year for Self, Church, 
Community, or Country — these would be ap- 
propriate topics for the former. For the first 
meeting of the new year, Mottoes and Good 
Resolutions for the Future, is a suggestive 
theme. Write the topic upon the board, and 
call attention to it in the preliminary exer- 
cises. It may be helpful to write under it ques- 
tions like these: 

Is it wise to make resolutions? Is it better 
not to make vows than to make and break them ? 
Are not the things that require firm resolution 
in advance likely to be most important? 

A resolution to " fight it out on this line, if 
9 129 



EEDEMPTION OF PRAYER-MEETING. 

it takes all summer," made and immortalized 
one of our greatest American generals. By 
declaring with inextinguishable fervor, ' i I know 
not what course others may take, but as for 
me, give me liberty or give me death, ' ' Patrick 
Henry lit a torch of new patriotism that still 
illumes the heavens of the New World. 

It is easy to quote numerous examples of 
the usefulness of good resolutions from secular 
and sacred records. Let the people give orig- 
inal or selected mottoes for the new year, and 
be sure to encourage the former. 

THE ETERNAL WORD. 
(Key-text— 2 Peter 1:19.) 

Suggestions: Two or three services can 
profitably be given to this study. Ordinarily, 
the time given it should not exceed twenty min- 
utes. Appropriate hymns can easily be found. 
When the topic is not so concrete as to require 
careful selection of hymns, the author fre- 
quently names the person who will announce 
the next hymn, and so has a hymn a-coming 

130 



PRAYER-MEETING STUDIES. 

throughout the service. But such a procedure 
would be inimical to the continuity of thought 
required by a topic like the above. However, 
it is a good way of training those who are timid 
about taking part to be helpful in the service. 

First Study. 

The Etekstal Woed Speaking foe Itself. 

Suggestion: The announcement of this topic 
should send the people to their Bibles, that they 
may come prepared. The pastor will know 
whether he can trust them to do this. To pre- 
vent a failure, and to make sure that certain 
desired Scriptures will be quoted, let him as- 
sign such passages to different persons, per- 
haps to those who might not otherwise be sure 
to come, thus accomplishing laudable purposes. 
A number of things the Bible says for itself 
are here subjoined: 
That it is God's own Word. 2 Tim. 3 : 16; Heb. 

1:1, 2, 2:2; Eph. 6:17. 
That it is a Word of prophecy. 2 Pet. 1 : 19. 
That it is "sharp." Heb. 4:12. 

131 



EEDEMPTION OF PRAYER-MEETING. 

That it is powerful to regenerate. 1 Pet. 1 : 23 ; 

Eph. 5 : 26. 
That it is complete and unchangeable. Deut. 

4:2; Rev. 22:18, 19. 
That it is perfect and tried. Deut. 6 : 6-9. 
That it is pure. Ps. 12 : 6. 
That it is sure and enlightening. Ps. 19 : 7, 8. 
That it is swift. Ps. 147:15. 
That it is magnified above His name. Ps. 138 : 2. 
That it is unfailingly effectual. Isa. 55 : 10, 11. 
That it is imperishable, everlasting. Isa. 40 : 8 ; 

Mark 13 : 31. 
That it is to be published, read. Deut. 31 : 11-13. 
That it must be obeyed. Prov. 13 : 13 ; Isa. 5 : 24. 

Second Study 

The Eteenal Wokd Attested by Othees. 

The adverse criticisms of the Bible have 
been numerous and varied. It has been de- 
nounced as a text-book of mysticism, as the 
embodiment of myths, as unsafe for children, 
as unhistorical, unscientific, and dangerous. 

132 



PRAYER-MEETING STUDIES. 

The printing of it lias been denounced by a 
great religions body as one of the black arts 
of the devil, and, not so long ago, this same 
body condemned Bible societies as the pest of 
Christendom. But the Bible is here still, has 
more friends, and is more eagerly studied than 
ever before. It is commonly known that the 
room in which Thomas Paine wrote his "Age 
of Reason" against the Bible was subsequently 
occupied by a clergyman who preached in the 
neighborhood. Also that the room in which 
Voltaire wrote his venomous vaporings later 
became a depository of the very Book which 
he said would scarcely be remembered in fifty 
years. 

Attestations. 

John Calvin: "Read Demosthenes and 
Cicero, Plato and Aristotle, and you will be 
interested, delighted, moved. Pass from these 
to the Bible and you will find yourself in- 
structed, captivated, judged, then comforted 
and inspired for holiest aims. Presently you 

133 



EEDEMPTION OF PRAYER-MEETING. 

will perceive that it is permeated by a divine 
influence which far excels the most illustrious 
human gifts. " 

Gustav Wasa, king of Sweden, to his son 
John: "I commend thee, my son, for reading 
the works of the ancients, for you have need 
to know how men were governed in their days. 
But I adjure thee, esteem not the word of man 
above the Word of God, for here thou canst 
learn the most rational system of conduct and 
also the art of the best government." 

The celebrated Goethe, though far from be- 
ing a disciple of Christ, wrote: "The wide- 
spread homage which generations and nations 
pay to this Book is because of its matchless 
character and content. It is not a national 
Book, but a Book of nations. As the centuries 
rise higher and higher, more and more this 
Book will be honored by all the truly wise as 
the foundation and means of true culture. ' ' 

John Milton: "There are no songs com- 
parable to the songs of Zion." 

Boyle, the naturalist : ' * The Bible is indeed 
134 



PRAYER-MEETING STUDIES. 

among books what the diamond is among stones, 
the most precious and sparkling; the most apt 
to scatter light, and yet the solidest and most 
proper to make impressions." 

Sir W. Jones, jurist and Orientalist, and 
one of the most accomplished scholars of his 
day in England : ' ' The Scriptures contain more 
true sublimity, more exquisite beauty, purer 
morality, more important history, and finer 
strains, both of poetry and eloquence, than 
could be collected within the same compass from 
all books in any age or idiom." 

Napoleon the Great: "Book unique, where 
the mind finds a moral beauty before unknown, 
and an idea of the Supreme superior even to 
that which creation suggests ! Who but God 
could produce that type, that ideal of perfec- 
tion, equally exclusive and original?" 

Edmund Burke: "A religious training is 
the cheapest defense of the nation. I have read 
the Bible morning, noon, and night, and have 
ever since been the happier and better man for 
such reading." 

135 



REDEMPTION OF PRAYER-MEETING. 

John Locke, the great metaphysician : ' i On 
morality there are books enough written both 
by ancient and modern philosophers, but the 
morality of the gospel does so excel them all 
that to give a man full knowledge of true 
morality, I shall send him to no other book than 
the New Testament." 

Lord Bacon: "There never was found, in 
any age of the world, either religion or law that 
doth so highly exalt public good as doth the 
. Bible. " 

General Andrew Jackson, pointing to the 
family Bible, during his last illness: "That 
Book, sir, is the rock on which our Republic 
rests.' ' 

William H. Seward: "I do not believe 
human society ever has attained or can ever 
attain a high state of intelligence, virtue, se- 
curity, liberty, or happiness without the Holy 
Scriptures. The hope of human progress is 
suspended on the ever-growing influence of the 
Bible.' ' 

Hon. W. E. Gladstone to Dr. T. DeWitt Tal- 
136 



PRAYER-MEETING STUDIES. 

mage : ' i The older I grow, the more confirmed 
I am in my faith in religion." "Sir," said he, 
with flashing eye, "talk about the questions of 
the day, there is but one question, and that is 
the gospel — that can and will correct every- 
thing." 

Abraham Lincoln: "The Bible is the best 
gift which God has given to man. ' ? 

Gen. U. S. Grant: "Hold fast to the Bible 
as the sheet-anchor of your liberties. Write 
its precepts in your hearts, and practice them 
in your lives. To the influence of this Book are 
we indebted for the progress made in true 
civilization, and to this must we look as our 
guide in the future. ' ' 

Shakespeare teems with quotations and 
Scriptural allusions. Four hundred thirty-six 
quotations have been found in Tennyson, and 
nine hundred twenty-six in Ruskin. Lord 
Hailes affirms that he has discovered the whole 
New Testament, excepting eleven verses, in the 
secular writings of the first three centuries, 
and he believes he could find these also. 

137 



REDEMPTION OF PRAYER-MEETING. 

SIMON ZELOTES. 

(Acts 1:13, 21:20; 1 Cor. 14:12; Titus 2:14; 

Galatians 4: 17.) 

Suggestion: The purpose of this service is 
not merely to talk about zeal, but to pray for 
it, and without fail, to get it. Let the leader 
keep his eye upon this goal and turn every- 
thing in this direction. If he desires, ten or 
fifteen of the key- thoughts here subjoined may 
be copied and distributed, to be read in rapid 
succession when called for. Or, he may embody 
them in his remarks. 

In Luke and Acts this man is spoken of 
as Simon Zelotes, which means the zealot. Mat- 
thew and Mark designate him as the Canaanite, 
really Canaanaean, which is the Aramaic for 
zealot, so that his zeal is expressed in every 
name given him. Simon belonged to a band of 
political enthusiasts, who strenuously objected 
to the rule of Rome. Perhaps he did many ex- 
travagant things in this connection. 

Jesus must have been looking for an en- 
thusiast, for He chose Simon as His disciple. 

138 



PRAYER-MEETING STUDIES. 

He saw in him qualities which, if turned in the 
right direction, would be invaluable, and his 
predominating quality was his zeal. 

It is a good indication when a boy lights 
up with enthusiasm as he tells of his games 
or books or any harmless hobby. And the same 
is no less true of us older ones. "We, too, should 
have sometimes ecstatic visions of domestic, 
political, religious, or other noble ideals, should 
be caught up, like Paul, to the third heaven. 
Unfortunately for the highest usefulness, we 
are training ourselves to be, as one expresses 
it, " icily regular, faultily faultless, splendidly 
null." Just so. We stand guard over dignity, 
respectability, and orderliness until it becomes a 
splendid nullity, and then we continue to watch 
the corpse. 

Mrs. Humphrey Ward, in "Robert Els- 
mere," aptly sets forth this spirit as "the use- 
lessness of utterance, the futility of enthusiasm, 
the practical absurdity of trying to realize any 
of the mind's inward dreams. These considera- 
tions," she says, "descend slowly and crush 

139 



REDEMPTION OF PRAYER-MEETING. 

down the newly springing growths of action or 
of passion.' 9 Such apathy is the deadliest 
blight that can fall upon a human life. 

Rev. George Jackson quotes another as say- 
ing that the young man of to-day has neither 
religion nor enthusiasm, and then adds, "I do 
not believe it, but if any such there be among 
us, let them kneel and pray God to deliver us 
from this death of the soul." 

No, "It is good always to be zealously af- 
fected in a good thing. ' ' Never pour water on 
the fire of another's noble enthusiasm. Peter, 
though hot-headed and impulsive, accomplished 
more than a whole battalion of "icily regulars" 
who never violated a rule of propriety. Boast 
not that you have never gone wrong when, 
perhaps, you are not going at all. 

The Church has been slow to learn how to 
wisely use her enthusiasts. Discarded by the 
Church because unwilling to be laced in an 
ecclesiastical straight-jacket, they have often 
gone to extremes. But is it not better to have 
the pot boil over than not to have it boil at all? 

140 



PRAYER-MEETING STUDIES. 

Why are men so impatient with religious 
enthusiasm, when they enjoy it in everything 
else? When the apostles preached on the day 
of Pentecost, many accused them of being 
drunk. When Paul waxed eloquent before 
Festus, that gentleman thought him to be mad. 
Because of Christ's great earnestness in preach- 
ing, some said, "He hath a devil," and, strange 
enough, His own friends tried to lay hands on 
Him, thinking "He was beside Himself.' ' 

When a political campaign is without en- 
thusiasm, we say there are no vital issues at 
stake. But this can not explain the absence 
of enthusiasm in religion, for the issues at stake 
are tremendous, embracing every interest of 
God and man. If a student fails to "get in 
the game" and will not even yell with the boys, 
they say he has no 6 ' college spirit. ' ' The Chris- 
tian without zeal has not the true Christ-spirit. 

We plead not for unintelligent boisterous- 
ness, but for the quality that made our Savior 
zealous and that led Him to choose Simon the 
Zealot, How sad that not more of the dar- 

141 



EEDEMPTION OF PRAYEK-MEETING. 

ing of commercial life finds its way into the 
Church! We grapple our business with zest, 
and then take hold of the King's business with 
fingers that are all thumbs. Note that all who 
have made a mark in the uplift of the race 
were such as could not be forced into a groove, 
but had initiative and enthusiasm, and in that 
sense were zealots. 

We have knowledge enough. Now let us 
pray to have it set ablaze with holy fervor. 
Look at this Church, this community, these 
homes, this Bible, the harvest field, Calvary, 
and the eternal throne — and henceforth be a 
loving, intelligent ' ' Simon Zelotes. ' ' 

FAVOEITE HYMNS. 

Suggestion: Announce the topic in advance 
and have the people suggest favorite hymns, 
quoting a verse, describing or relating some in- 
cident connected with them. Have the Hymnal 
and, perhaps, other books on hand and sing 
a verse or two of most of the hymns mentioned, 

142 



PRAYER-MEETING STUDIES. 

It is well to improvise a choir to assist, as 
many hymns may not be familiar, though most 
of them are sure to be. Intersperse the singing 
with an occasional prayer. A short Bible read- 
ing like the following, at the beginning, will 
add to the spiritual richness of the service: 

" There is singing in heaven," Rev. 15:3. 

"Spiritual songs are needed on earth," Eph. 
5:19. 

"A new song was sung in heaven — a re- 
demption song, ' ' Rev. 5:9, 10 ; 14 : 2, 3. 

"A new song is requested of man," Psa. 
33:3. 

A PROMISE MEETING. 

Suggestion: In connection with the opening 
exercises, quote 2 Peter 1 : 4, and point out 
two things: 

1. The promises described "great and 
precious. ' ' 

2. The purpose for which given — "that by 
these ye might become partakers of the divine 
nature. ' 7 

143 



REDEMPTION OF PRAYER-MEETING. 

Let the quotation be repeated in concert in 
answer to the leader's questions: What kind 
of promises? and, What are they given for? 

Just to announce a promise meeting and 
ask all to come prepared to quote a promise, 
or, worse still, not to announce it till the meet- 
ing has begun, is likely to result in disappoint- 
ment. Many will quote the same familiar texts ; 
some, seeing that their passage has already 
been given, will quote none at all, and thus 
the scope of the selections will be impaired. 
Beware at this point. It is better to announce 
the promise meeting one week in advance. 
Promises should be assigned by asking one to 
bring a promise for the sick; another, one for 
the aged, the penitents, the mourning, the op- 
pressed. There will be no trouble to get the 
people to do this. Having done it, you may 
look for a profitable meeting. Sometimes it 
is best to give the references, but ordinarily it 
is wise to let the people search the Scriptures 
for them. Suggestive promises are here sub- 
joined: 

144 



FRAYER-MEETING STUDIES. 

A Promise of 

Material blessings. Old Testament Beati- 
tudes, Deut. 28 : 1-6. 

Peace. John 14 : 27. 

Rest. Ex. 33:14. 

Reward. Gen. 15 : 1 ; Prov. 11 : 18. 

Pardon. Isa. 55 : 7. 

Guidance. Psa. 32:8, 48:14; John 16:13. 

The Holy Spirit. Luke 11 : 13. 

Power. Deut. 8 : 18 ; Isa. 40 : 29. 

Wisdom. Eph. 1 : 16, 17. 

The Kingdom. Luke 12 : 32. 

A Promise for 

The troubled. Psa. 27 : 5. 

The sick. Psa. 41:3. 

The burdened. Psa. 55 : 22. 

The fallen. Psa. 145 : 14. 

The mourning. Matt. 5 : 4. 

The aged. Isa. 46 : 4. 

The widow and orphan. Jer. 49 : 11 ; Mai. 
3:5. 



10 145 



EEDEMPTION OF PRAYER-MEETING. 

THE JERUSALEM CHURCH. 

(Acts 2:41-47.) 

Suggestion: In this study the blackboard 
may be profitably used, as follows : 

With Bible in hand, let the people name 
from the reference above the prominent traits 
of the Apostolic Church, which the leader or 
some other writes upon the board. 

A Church made up of Bible Christians — 
v. 41, "They that gladly received the Word." 

A sociable Church — v. 42, "fellowship and 
breaking of bread." 

A united Church — v. 46, "with one accord." 

A praying Church — v. 42, ' i and in prayers. ' ' 

A generous Church — v. 45, "sold their pos- 
sessions and parted them to all men." 

A grateful Church — v. 47, "praising God." 

An influential Church — v. 47, "having favor 
with all the people. " 

An Apostolic Church — v. 42, "continued 
steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine." 

A growing Church — v. 47, "and the Lord 
added daily such as should be saved." 

146 



PRAYER-MEETING STUDIES. 

Question: Which of these traits are found in 
our Church? Let us review them and see. 
Now let us pray that what is wanting as yet 
may be graciously supplied. (Ten minutes of 
prayer.) 

THE SOUL'S RENAISSANCE. 

1. Putting off— the "old man/' Eph. 4: 22. 

2. Putting away— ' ' lying, ' ' Eph. 4:25; Col. 
3:8. 

3. Putting on — ' ' the new man, ' ' Eph. 4 : 24 ; 
Col. 3:10. 

4. Putting into — "I will put My law into 
their hearts, ' 9 Heb. 10 : 16. 

HEART IRRIGATION. 

"And their souls shall be as a watered 
garden; and they shall not sorrow any more 
at all." Jer. 31:12. 

Irrigation is one of the oldest arts. To it 
Egypt, Assyria, and other countries of the 
East owed their prosperity. Our Scripture em- 

147 



EEDEMPTION OF PRAYER-MEETING. 

ploys this beautiful metaphor to set forth the 
influence of divine grace upon the human heart. 

We are reminded of the beauty and fruit- 
fulness of the watered garden. When the Span- 
ish invaded Mexico, they were astonished to 
find the charming gardens of the Aztecs, who 
had brought irrigation and horticulture to a 
perfection unknown to the Spaniards. So also 
divine grace awakens slumbering faculties and 
unfolds a fruition in many lives which is wholly 
unexpected and surprising. 

Dante's words, "That which in heaven is 
flame on earth is smoke," illustrate the differ- 
ence between a soul under divine and one under 
evil influence. The watered garden in the midst 
of barren surroundings represents the same dif- 
ference. 

The food products of a watered garden be- 
long to its immediate owner, but this is the 
least the garden yields. As Emerson said, 
"Oaks bear other fruit than acorns. " So the 
by-products of the watered garden — its beauty, 
fragrance, and the cheer, the faith, the praise 

148 



PRAYER-MEETING STUDIES. 

which it inspires — these are more than pulse 
and greens, and they belong to all. Even so 
the by-products of the soul that is as a watered 
garden offer more than mere sustenance for 
itself, or store for future use. Its richest bene- 
factions are to all. Every passerby may stop 
and see, may eat and drink, and then pass on 
refreshed by the fruit of the Christian's faith, 
and many do. 

Note the ascending scale, John 15: 1-5: "no 
fruit,' ' "fruit," "more fruit," "much fruit." 

SUNDAY-SCHOOL PRAYER-MEETING. 

Suggestion: Announce the meeting on pre- 
ceding Sabbath, and urge all teachers and of- 
ficers to be present. Assign sub-topics to per- 
sons known to be capable and interested. If 
possible, have a few special musical numbers, 
hymns, or solos that ring with interest in the 
Bible, or the young. Have teachers speak for 
their classes, explaining what is being done to 
lead the scholars to decide for Christ. If any 
teachers will ask for prayers in behalf of their 

149 



BEDEMPTION OF PKAYER-MEETING. 

classes, it will unfailingly touch hearts and 
awaken interest. To report conversions that 
have occurred, or the case of scholars about 
to join the Church, will have the same result. 
A good topic to announce is : The Church 
about her chief business. Here are seed- 
thoughts for the study : 

1. The commission — "Feed My lambs,' ' John 

21:15-17. 
Feeding the lambs and sheep is the final 
test of love ("Lovest thou Me?"). Note, they 
are to be fed, not merely instructed to know 
about the Shepherd. 

2. The peculiar relation of childhood to the 

Kingdom. 
After reading, show how this appears from 
Gal. 3 : 29 ; Acts 2 : 39 ; 1 Cor. 7 : 14 ; Matt. 19 : 14. 

3. The sacred obligation growing out of this 

relation. 
Not enough that they are under universal 
redemption. They must be taught to know 

150 






PRAYER-MEETING STUDIES. 

Christ, and led to accept and publicly to con- 
fess Him. Why is it that sixty per cent of our 
scholars go out from our schools unconverted? 
Of our boys we lose more than seventy per cent. 
One prolific cause of this is that so many of 
them have teachers that tell them about Christ, 
but do not lead them to accept and confess 
Him. Some do not even try. Would they be 
likely to drift away from the Church if con- 
verted? First of all, we must ourselves be 
saved if we would save these boys and girls. 
Then we must studiously aim at their conver- 
sion. 

4. Behold the beautiful harvest. 

In his volume entitled, "The Child as God's 
Child," Professor Rishell says that eighty per 
cent of those who unite with the Church are 
trained in the Sunday school. Think of it — if 
every officer and teacher in Methodism alone 
would win one scholar to Christ and the Church 
within twelve months, it would mean an army 
of 400,000 new members annually, and rela- 

151 



REDEMPTION OF PRAYER-MEETING. 

tively the same would be true in other denom- 
inations! The art of teaching the lesson has 
been wonderfully improved. How about the 
art of enrolling our boys and girls in the King's 
army? 

THE PUBLICAN'S PRAYER. 

Suggestion: The blackboard may be used, 
letting the people name the characteristics of 
this prayer and the things implied by it, while 
the leader or some one designated by him writes 
them on the board. 

The prayer was 

Humble, earnest, wise, trustful, and to the 
point. 

The prayer implies 

1. That there was faith in God. 

2. That God takes note of man's conduct 
and, in his serious moments, man realizes 
this. 

3. That man is responsible to God, and 
knows it. 

152 



PRAYER-MEETING STUDIES. 

4. That sin has entered, disturbing the re- 
lation between God and man. 

5. That God can and does pardon sinners. 

6. That there is no happiness or peace if 
unforgiven. 

7. That none need despair because of sin. 

8. That man may come to God direct, with- 
out the mediation of a priest. 

INDECISION. 

(1 Kings 18:21.) 

Elijah's call for decision implies 

That sinful man has a moral sense. Rom. 

2:14. 
That he has the power of choice. Deut. 

30:19; Luke 10:42. 
That he is aided by the Divine Spirit and 

may decide for God and the good. Gen. 

6:3. 

Indecision stifles enterprise, impairs growth, 
spurns opportunity. Luke 9 : 59-62 ; 
Matt. 12 : 30. 

153 



REDEMPTION OF PRAYER-MEETING. 

It invites self-deception. Acts 24 : 25 ; 26 : 28. 

Felix and Agrippa. 
Misleads others. Dent. 32 : 15-19 ( Jeslinrnn 

misled children) ; 1 Sam. 15 : 28. 

3. Wherein are we in danger of indecision? 

(1) In becoming Christians. 

(2) In uniting with the Church. 

(3) In laying aside besetting sin. Heb. 12 : 1. 

(4) In welcoming the Spirit's latest, bright- 
est light and walking in it, no matter 
what defects it may expose in our tra- 
ditional beliefs or how it shows our 
vaunted righteousness of self to be "as 
filthy rags. ' ' 

RECEIVING THE HOLY SPIRIT. 

Suggestion: An exhaustive study of this sub- 
ject is out of the question here. All that is in- 
tended is the setting forth of the need of re- 
ceiving the Holy Spirit, in order that the Chris- 
tian may be led to pray intelligently and ear- 
nestly for this gift at once. 

154 



PRAYER-MEETING STUDIES. 

Acts 19:1-7. 

Whether because Paul observed a serious 
lack in the twelve Ephesian Christians, or be- 
cause he was determined to declare the full 
counsel of God to all classes, we do not know, 
but he pointedly asked them if they had re- 
ceived the Holy Spirit when they believed. 
Their reply, "We did not so much as hear that 
the Holy Spirit was given," proved the correct- 
ness of whatever misgiving Paul may have felt 
concerning them. They had received the bap- 
tism of John unto repentance, but not Christian 
baptism with water, nor yet the baptism of 
Him who, John said, would come after him and 
would baptize with fire and with the Spirit. 
Both these baptisms they promptly received 
under the ministry of Paul. 

Many Christians to-day have little in ad- 
vance of these Ephesians, unless it be Christian 
baptism with water. May not the reason be 
that they, too, have never "heard," have not 
been clearly instructed! Paul evidently con- 
sidered the receiving of the Holy Spirit a requi- 

155 



REDEMPTION OF PRAYER-MEETING. 

site to satisfactory experience and efficient 
service. 

The following clear essentials of such an ex- 
perience and service are wanting until believing 
is rewarded by the gift of the Spirit: 

1. Love of the Divine Word. 

Not mere belief in or defense of it — a love 
for it, like that of the youthful author of the 
119th Psalm. Nine times he speaks of his "de- 
lights" in the Word, nine times of his "love" 
for it, and many times of ' its excellencies — 
"great spoil," "sweeter than honey," "better 
than thousands of gold," "wiser than mine 
enemies," "hiding-place and shield," and 
"everlasting." Do you love it as he did? Do 
you read it with pleasure or from duty, or not 
at all? Would you study it though you had no 
address to prepare, no class in the Bible school 
to teach? 

2. A happy life of prayer. 

Mark, not, do you pray — of course you do — 
but do you live a life of prayer? An Indian 

156 



PRAYER-MEETING STUDIES. 

convert said, "I used to pray three times a 
day, but now I only pray once — that is, all 
the day. ' f He was not upon his knees all day, 
but the consciousness of self -commitment unto 
God was abiding. His soul-attitude toward God 
had become fixed. 

3. A pure, unselfish life. 

There is little efficiency, and no satisfaction, 
in any other life. Just enough efficiency to hold 
your job and draw your pay, and even that 
comes hard. S. D. Gordon speaks of life as 
the web of character. The thoughts, imagina- 
tions, purposes, affections, and will are the 
under threads, while the looks, voice, words, 
acts, habits are the upper threads. Time is 
the shuttle which swiftly and unceasingly 
shoots to and fro, weaving these threads into 
the web of life. How does the product look to 
you, to others, to God? Are the goods all wool 
and of standard width? 

4. Peace and joy. 

How about these? Is your peace "like a 
157 



EEDEMPTION OF PRAYER-MEETING. 

river?" Does it "pass understanding?" Is it 
His peace? Is your joy "full," "unspeakable," 
and is it steady in "tribulation?" 

5. Poiver. 

This is another essential of a satisfactory 
and efficient Christian life. Power to "resist 
the evil one," to conquer self, to do or say the 
unpopular thing, if needful; to "persuade 
men," by inviting them, pleading with them, 
lifting up Christ before them, and then lifting 
them up to Him. Power to run or to stand 
still, to sing praises or be silent. How about 
this? 

Note that all the five things mentioned came 
to the apostles with the baptism of the Spirit. 
They can be obtained in no other way to-day. 
It is the specific office of the Spirit to mature 
these graces, and there can be no substitute for 
Him. Note also that He is here — here in the 
world, in the Church, in the Word, and would 
dwell within and enrich you. How to receive 
Him? Precisely as the disciples did — by obey- 

158 



PRAYER-MEETING STUDIES. 

ing Christ's twofold command to "go" and to 
' ' tarry. ' ' 

There is a school that trains men to "balance 
up business," not to take invoice — any one can 
do that — but to examine any business with un- 
sparing scrutiny and report results. It is ex- 
pensive service, but it pays. There is such a 
thing as growing stale in religion and running 
contentedly in deadly grooves. Let us have a 
balancing of our spiritual affairs, that we may 
receive the fullness of the Spirit. 

THE MISSIONARY PRAYER-MEETING. 

To have a wide-awake missionary prayer- 
meeting about once a month is to add one more 
mighty dynamo to the machinery of the Church. 
Nor is it difficult to have such. The prayer- 
meeting committee, or a special committee ap- 
pointed for this service, may prepare the mis- 
sionary features of the service, and let the pas- 
tor conduct it. In most instances the latter will 
need to direct the preparation. Happy the pas- 
tor who has a member or two who will take 

159 



REDEMPTION OF PRAYER-MEETING. 

the matter upon their hearts and relieve him 
of some of the work. To impart the most in- 
formation in the most attractive manner is the 
great objective which should be kept well in 
mind. Not to get missionary money, but to 
make missionary Christians is the prime pur- 
pose of this service. The logical order of ex- 
ercises should be as follows: information, in- 
terest, sympathy, prayer, enthusiasm, desire 
to help. Is not, then, the result well worth the 
effort of such a service? 

The very latest news from the front can 
easily be obtained, and this, with the liberal 
use of maps, charts, miscellaneous literature, 
and personal communications from the field, can 
not fail to awaken interest. The maps and 
charts are not expensive, but if they can not be 
procured, the ' i Chart Series ' ' will be sent free, 
and from it the figures and facts can be copied 
upon the blackboard or on heavy paper or cloth. 

Doubtless many missionary prayer-meetings 
are growing stale because too little thought and 
effort is given them. If Christians are not 

160 



PRAYER-MEETING STUDIES. 

enthusiastic about world evangelization, it is 
either because they are following Christ afar 
off or because they are not made to see the 
needs and golden harvests of the field, and the 
moral loss of leaving the grain ungarnered. 
We can not lay the dullness of this service to 
the unspiritual state of the Church so long as 
we have not used the approved means of stimu- 
lating spirituality by spreading missionary in- 
telligence. 

Because of the rapid advance of missionary 
activities, it is difficult to offer appropriate ma- 
terial for the missionary prayer service, but 
for such as may desire it, the following exer- 
cises are suggested for one such service : 

Hymn, i ' The Son of God goes forth to war. ' ' 

Three or four earnest invocations. 

Reading of 72d Psalm, or the 54th chapter of 
Isaiah, or an arranged responsive reading. 

Study of the field which is the topic, if pos- 
sible, by use of maps and charts ; or, if without 
these, by oral instructions as to: 

1. Geography of the field. 
11 161 



KEDEMPTION OF PEAYEE-MEETXNG. 

2. Brief history of missionary work there 
by other Churches, then by your own, 
frankly naming encouragements and dis- 
couragements. Nothing is gained by 
withholding salient features and impress- 
ing people that pagan nations are coming 
our way on the run, begging us to receive 
them. Let the people know of the tre- 
mendous obstacles in the way, as well as 
of the great victories. 

3. Setting forth the political, social, or other 
conditions that have a vital bearing upon 
the work. 

4. What are the immediate needs, and what 
is your Church doing to meet them? 

5. Communications from the field, or from 
persons who have been there, or any who 
are competent to speak of it. 

The exercises should be freely interspersed 
with prayer and hymns. 



162 



PRAYER-MEETING STUDIES. 

PATRIOTIC PRAYER-MEETING. 

Suggestion: Three or four times a year, 
what may be called Patriotic Prayer-meetings 
will be found useful. Have appropriate singing 
and, if possible, a short address that bristles 
with " points' ' on some aspect of national 
morals or events. Great inspiration will result 
from having much prayer and praise for pre- 
vailing evidences of progress in public morals 
and true reform. Such evidences should be 
diligently sought out and strongly emphasized. 
Nor should wrongs be covered over. In set- 
ting forth wrongs, however, beware of letting 
the service degenerate into a sheer indignation 
meeting. Sin may be committed in improperly 
denouncing sin. Ardent, indiscriminate denun- 
ciation of wrong is inimical to devout worship. 
First, let the moral sensibilities be stimulated 
and the conscience quickened by earnest prayer 
and deep devotion, then turn the full light on 
existing wrongs. Upon the other hand, cause 
for thanksgiving may be found in the latest 

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EEDEMPTION OF PRAYER-MEETING. 

wholesome legislation or court decision, and in 
strong moral utterances of the press or prom- 
inent men and women. An appropriate topic 
for such a service would be 

The Basis of National Well-being. 

Scripture : 1 Tim. 2:1-5; Jer. 9 : 23, 24. 

Things that are not the basis of national well- 
being: 

Wealth and material resources. 

Numbers. 

Military strength. 

Education (alone). 

Statesmanship. 

The leader may show at length how well we 
are provided with all these. But that it would 
be folly to put our trust in these accessories, 
possessed by many great nations now defunct, 
should also be made plain. 

Things that are the basis of our national well- 
being: 

The fear of God. 

164 



PRAYEK-MEETING STUDIES. 

The moral integrity of the people. 
Righteous laws impartially administered. 
Citizens who, with Churchill, 

"Consider well, weigh strictly right and wrong, 
Eesolve not quick, but once resolved, be strong; 
Rather stand up, assured with conscious pride, 
Alone, than err with millions on your side." 

FEEDING THE FIVE THOUSAND. 

(Mark 6:36-44.) 
The Food. 

1. Common food — bread and fishes. 
Ordinary mercies enough, if blessed of 
Christ. Many pray for a "blessing," 
meaning spiritual dainties. The Hebrew 
captives were satisfied with "pulse." 

2. Ordinary food, obtained through ordi- 
nary channels — a boy and the disciples — 
but consecrated with an extraordinary 
blessing. Do not expect miracles till or- 
dinary methods are exhausted — Jesus 
might have made bread of the stones, 
but preferred to make the meager pro- 

165 



REDEMPTION OF PRAYER-MEETING. 

vision ample by His blessing. How often 
He does that still. 

The Provider. 

1. Christ. He took the initiative — pitied 
the people as He foresaw the coming 
hunger. 

2. Through the disciples and the lad. "Give 
ye them to eat." 

The Sequel. 

1. Christ looked up and prayed, then gave 
to the disciples and they to the people. 
Disciples an important factor, after all — 
helped in procuring and did the distrib- 
uting. 

2. All were filled — that is, satisfied, felt no 
more hunger. In many respects divine 
blessing makes the little we have go a 
long way, accomplish wonders. Illus- 
trate. Food was prepared for the people, 
and the people for the food. Christ's 
mind influenced their minds, while His 

166 



PRAYER-MEETING STUDIES. 

blessing gave efficacy and increase to the 
scanty provision. 

It is not the quantity of the meat, but the 
contentment and cheerfulness of the mind, that 
makes the richest feast. 

Prayer: Give me an eye to see God in all 
things, a hand to serve Him with all things, and 
a heart to praise Him for all things. 

Note : Either in advance of the service, or 
at its beginning, the leader may ask that per- 
sonal observations of "A little child shall lead 
them" be given at the proper moment, say, 
under "The Provider," "2" above. Here is 
an example : A father, returning home after a 
prolonged absence, and not knowing that his 
little daughter had become a Christian, pro- 
ceeded to eat without saying grace. "Don't 
you pray before you eat?" asked the little girl. 
"Daughter will pray if you wish," interposed 
the mother. She prayed so beautifully that the 
father presently dropped knife and fork and 
buried his tearful face in his hands. 



167 



REDEMPTION OF PRAYER-MEETING. 

A MANLY RELIGION. 

(Isa. 46:8; 1 Cor. 16:13; Acts 4:13.) 

Suggestion: This can be made a men's 
meeting, and if it is desired, all the exer- 
cises may be by men. Let the women "keep 
silence'' in the pnblic congregation, while the 
men, for once, do all the singing, praying, and 
speaking. Bnt the ladies shonld be invited, and 
later a meeting for ladies can be announced, 
with the men invited to keep silence. If desir- 
able, selections from the following may be dis- 
tributed for use. The author acknowledges in- 
debtedness to Rev. George Jackson for help in 
this study. 

The estrangement of men from the Church 
in this country, and still more in Europe, is a 
deplorable fact. Two-thirds of the members of 
the Church are said to be women. In Scotland 
from twenty to thirty per cent fewer men join 
the Church than women before the age of 
twenty. It is the business of the Church to 
find the cause of this condition and to remedy it. 

168 



PRAYER-MEETING STUDIES. 

There is no deep-seated hostility to the 
Church, perhaps, but there is widespread in- 
difference and apathy with reference to her 
claims. We can not concede that the cause lies 
in the nature of Christianity. Rather it lies in 
the misconception of its true nature. Many men 
do not understand that the Christian life and 
the manly life are one and the same thing. They 
fear religion will make them appear womanish, 
and there is nothing a young man hates more 
than that. He may act very foolish in many 
things, but he will never knowingly lay him- 
self open to the charge of being effeminate. 

He also fears sanctimoniousness, which to 
him is an unavoidable concomitant of religion. 
He is sure that he has seen men, some of them 
clergymen, whom religion has . shorn of their 
manliness. Sidney Smith must have stumbled 
at this when he wrote of the three sexes, men, 
women, and clergymen. But this is a miscon- 
ception of Christianity and Christ. If for any- 
thing, Jesus Christ stands for manliness, cour- 
age of the highest type, and sturdiness of char- 

169 



BEDEMPTION OF PKAYEB-MEETING. 

acter. With these qualities, however, it asso- 
ciates kindness and gentleness. It produces 
gentle men, that is, men who are no less gentle 
because being men and no less manly because 
being gentle. Physical prowess, uncouthness, 
and ruffianism is not manliness. 

The Scriptures cited above aptly verify this 
conception of manliness. "Quit you like men," 
says Paul. He is training men to be saints, 
yes, but stalwart, soldierly saints; saints who 
have courage to strike a blow, but also stamina 
to take punishment without flinching. "Quit 
you like men, ' ' be game. 

Notice in Acts 4 : 13 that it was not the 
meekness and love in Peter and John, important 
as these are, that reminded their enemies that 
they were influenced by associating with Jesus. 
No, it was "when they saw their boldness' ' that 
"they took knowledge of them that they had 
been with Jesus." Manifestly Annas, Caia- 
phas, and Alexander (Acts 4: 6) had no doubt 
about the manliness of Jesus. After a night 
in jail, Peter and John were given a hearing 

170 



PBAYER-MEETING STUDIES. 

before the Sanhedrin. Instead of flinching and 
begging off and promising not to preach any 
more, they proceeded to preach to their judges, 
flinging it into their very teeth that "Him ye 
crucified." Anything unmanly or womanish 
about that? Observe Christ lashing the dese- 
crators of the temple out into the street. See 
Him regal, calm, majestic, though a prisoner 
before Pilate, a horrible death awaiting Him, 
while His judge flits nervously about, scarcely 
knowing what to do or say next. What young 
man that can not afford to take such a Christ 
as his Captain, Savior, and Lord! 

Christian manliness expresses itself not only 
in courage, but in unselfish devotion to others. 
When at the brook Kedron they could not well 
take Jesus, because uncertain of His identity, 
He placed Himself in their hands by saying, 
"I am Jesus of Nazareth," but magnanimously 
added, "If ye seek Me, let these go their way," 
meaning His affrighted friends. He bade the 
weeping women that followed to weep not for 
Him, but for themselves and their children. In 

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EEDEMPTION OF PKAYER-MEETING. 

the shadow of the cross He cared for His 
mother, and when upon it He prayed for the 
men that murdered Him. Anything weak and 
effeminate in these things? 

Gentleness, when wedded with manhood, 
makes a man, says one. Physical courage is 
possible without the Spirit of Christ, but not 
the courage to fight the wrong, and while so 
fighting to be as tender as a child. 

There are tasks in Christianity that only 
woman can perform, but the great problems of 
the Kingdom are essentially a man's job. 

STEPS IN SALVATION AND SEEVICE. 

Saved by an Evek-keady Saviok. 

Immediate decision being urged by the mes- 
sage of the gospel, a man resolved that he would 
go home and there give himself to Christ. He 
started, thinking and praying on the way. 
Presently he reflected that there was nothing 
at home that would help him, and so, with one 
decisive act of surrender, prayed, while walk- 

172 



PRAYER-MEETING STUDIES. 

ing, "God be merciful to me, a sinner, now!" 
That moment his longings were silenced and his 
soul was at rest. 

Sealed by the Kiss of Pardon and Adoption. 

After one of his greatest victories, Cyrus, 
wishing to bestow marks of esteem upon his 
generals, gave to one a sword, to another a 
signet ring, but to his friend Crysantas he 
would offer no material thing. So he kissed 
him on one cheek, then on the other, that he 
might know that he was the object of special 
favor. "Who also sealed us and gave us the 
earnest of the Spirit in our hearts" (2 Cor. 
1 : 22) . ' i In whom having also believed, ye were 
sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise" (Eph. 
1:13). 

Transformed by the Light of Divine Grace. 

A traveler was told that if he went up Pike 's 
Peak as far as Cripple Creek at three o'clock 
in the morning, he would see a wonderful sight. 
He went, but, arriving just before sunrise, he 

173 



BEDEMPTION OF PKAYER-MEETING. 

saw nothing strange. He moved a little farther 
up and soon heard exclamations by other tour- 
ists, just as the sun was rising. He turned, 
and there before him stood a mountain like a 
white-robed priest, another like a choir of an- 
gels, and a third like unto a golden ladder 
reaching to the skies. "The darkness is pass- 
ing away and the true light already shineth" 
(1 John 2: 8). "For God who commanded the 
light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in 
our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge 
of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ " 
(2 Cor. 4:6). 

Saved to Save Otheks. 

Thomas Guthrie tells of a ship's crew who 
heard signals of distress in the distance and 
later found a wreck, and fastened to it an al- 
most lifeless human form, so weak he could 
scarcely speak. As they bent to lift him up, 
they heard him whisper, "There is another 
man." They saved this one also. The servant 
should be as his Master. He, while dying, saved 

174 



PRAYER-MEETING STUDIES. 

another unto life eternal. This spirit was in 
the shipwrecked man above and should be in 
you and me. 

Makes Progress Because There is a Secret 
Power Within. 

It was in the time of sails and side-wheelers 
and before the screw-propeller was known. A 
pretty pleasure fleet lay calm-bound in the bay, 
and every sail was limp. One sloop caused 
great surprise by coming on apace with splash 
of side-wheel and sails a-flutter. Its secret 
power was a screw-propeller, hidden from the 
unknowing gaze of man. (Eph. 4:20; 1:19; 
2 Cor. 4:7.) 

At Even-time It Shall be Light. 

A great artist's masterpiece was a death- 
scene with gloom all about. Dying at ninety 
in the triumph of the faith, " Fetch my master- 
piece and brush," he said, "for I must change 
it before I go. This valley is not dark, but 

175 



REDEMPTION OF PRAYER-MEETING. 

beautiful with a glory I never saw before." 
God's true child never dies in despair. Always, 
"at even-time it shall be light." 

IMPORTANT BIBLE "COMES." 

In Revelation 22 : 17 the Spirit, the Bride, 
and all who hear are represented as saying, 
"Come," hence there is a variety of Bible 
"Comes." 

1. Nehemiah 6 : 2 holds up, as warning, an evil 

"come," an invitation to the plain of 
Ono for wrongful purposes. 

This reminds us that over against the good 
are many invitations to the bad. 

2. The intellectual ' ' Come, ' ' John 1 : 46, " Come 

and see. ' ' 

The Bible and Christianity are not opposed 
to critical inquiry ; they invite and get it. Re- 
cent discoveries disprove the destructive argu- 
ments against the Mosaic authorship of the 

176 



PRAYER-MEETING STUDIES. 

Pentateuch. Indeed, the Code of Hammurabi 
and the Tel el Amarna tablets have made neces- 
sary the rewriting of Old Testament criticism. 
Until recently many critics declared against 
the Mosaic authorship of the books that bear 
his name on the twofold ground that writing 
was not known in Moses' day, and that codes 
as exalted as those bearing Moses' name could 
not have been written thirteen or fourteen cen- 
turies before Christ. The documents named 
disprove both these objections. Learned and 
unlearned are invited to ' i come and see. ' ' More 
than ever these classes do come and do see, and 
by the truth themselves are conquered. But we 
are attracted also by 

3. The spiritual "Come." (Gen. 7:1; Matt, 
11:28.) 

In ceaseless iteration the refrain of the 
whole gospel rings out in this winsome 
"Come." It means 

Come and see; 

Come and trust; 
12 177 



EEDEMPTION OF PRAYER-MEETING. 

Come and worship ; 

Come and work; and then, at last, 

Come home and rest. 

Suggestion: An evangelistic or at least a 
very practical turn can be given the meeting 
by singing hymns that ring with the invitation, 
"Come," and by proposing the questions, "Who 
should come, and why, and how, and when? 

The blackboard can be used by writing, for 
example, "Come and" — then letting the people 
suggest the word "see" by referring them to 
Philip (John 1 : 46), after which it is written in. 
Or, "Come and" — the word "worship" is to 
be written in after the people have suggested it 
when reminded of what the wise men did at the 
Bethlehem manger. 

LOOKING BACK. 

(Gen. 19:17-26; Luke 9:57-62.) 

Let the remarks revolve about the question, 
Why and when is looking back especially dan- 
gerous ? 

178 



PRAYER-MEETING STUDIES. 

1. When doubt assails. 

Lot's wife had not implicit faith in the an- 
gel 's warning. Assurance is not gained by look- 
ing back. New evidences, all-sufficient for your 
doubts, lie just ahead. Go forward and you will 
find them. 

2. When under conviction for sin. 

"Up, flee for thy life and delay not." Now, 
to look back is to silence the Voice that offers 
peace, pardon, and life. "Thou art not far 
from the Kingdom of heaven.'' (Zoar.) 

3. When tempted. 

To hesitate, to parley, or even to consider 
the enemy's proffer means almost sure sur- 
render. If resisted at his first approach, he is 
sure to "flee" (James 4:7). If evil thoughts 
are banished, evil deeds can never follow. 

4. When duty beckons. 

Angel lips had warned Lot's wife; angel 
hands had led her out; and angel voices bade 
her not look back, or stay in all that plain. It 

179 



EEDEMPTION OF PRAYER-MEETING. 

was her salvation and her duty to obey. It al- 
ways is. Trifling with what is understood to 
be a duty is dangerous and often fatal. Be- 
sides, resolutely entering upon a duty renders 
it a pleasure. 

Suggestion: Let there be much prayer that 
God will make duty a real delight, but also 
for grace to perform it, whether a delight or 
not. Examples of the fatality of looking back 
are easily found: The Israelites looking back 
to Egypt and dying in the wilderness; Judas, 
the betrayer; Demas; "many of the disciples " 
(John 6:66), and more modern instances. 

PROFIT AND LOSS IN RELIGION. 

(With blackboard.) 

Suggestion: There is a loss even in religion. 
The devil does not fish with a baitless hook. 
In the temptation of Adam and Eve, and of 
Jesus, much was offered. It is futile to try to 
make people believe that a life of selfishness 
and sin is all wretchedness. Some have more 

180 



PKAYER-MEETING STUDIES. 

to lose in becoming Christians than others, 
while some have everything to gain and noth- 
ing to lose. 

Let the people join in making honest men- 
tion of the things that often are forfeited in 
becoming a Christian and, if desired, place them 
in a column on the board. In the column will 
appear friends, pleasures, comforts, and life 
itself. Under these, in the same column, place 
the undesirable things that are lost in becoming 
a disciple of the Christ. Some of these are evil 
associations; a harmful influence over others, 
dear ones it may be ; a troubled conscience and 
remorse, a false hope, and spiritual decay. 

Over against the losses, in another column, 
place the gains, again letting the people assist. 
Be prepared to offer pointed comment upon 
things named. For example, for the disciples 
to follow Christ meant a loss of business. 
Elisha was the son of a prosperous land-owner 
when Elijah called him away from home. A 
young lady was compelled to choose between 
her lover and Christ. She chose the Bride- 

181 



REDEMPTION OF PRAYER-MEETING. 

groom of her soul and lost the lover. The 
choice of the ministry to many bright young 
men involves lifelong financial limitations and 
embarrassment. 



A MESSENGER FOR CHRIST. 

Messages are sent by telegraph, telephone, 
and by courier, bearing a written or an oral 
message. Our subject means messengers of 
the latter class. God wants individual living 
messengers; messengers who "let the Word of 
Christ dwell in them richly" (Col. 3:16), so 
that, though the message is His, it is also 
theirs. It comes from the message-bearer's 
heart as well as from Christ's. 

These messengers speak with authority, they 
are ministers of State, ambassadors of the 
King. They frequent His throne ; indeed, they 
dwell under its shadow. What honors, privi- 
leges are connected with such message bearing ! 
To this work we all are called. 

Suggestion: Here let the blackboard be 
182 



PRAYER-MEETING STUDIES. 

brought into use by writing upon it in large 
letters, "The Kind of Messenger for Christ 
That I Would Be." Under this write qualities 
of an ideal messenger, as they are mentioned 
by those present. The list will be somewhat as 
follows : 

Swift, Fearless, Faithful, Loving, Prayer- 
ful, Untiring, Tactful, Hopeful, Sympa- 
thetic, Consistent, Intelligent. 

Anticipating the qualities that will be named' 
the leader may prepare himself to add some 
pointed illustrative comment. To illustrate: 
when "Fearless" is mentioned, reference can 
be made to Joan of Arc, who boldly ventured 
into the presence of King Charles and delivered 
her message, saying, "The King of heaven an- 
nounces to you by me that you shall be crowned 
king in the city of Rheims, and that you shall 
be His vicegerent in France." 

When "Swift" is suggested, tell of Thomas 
Wolsey, whose promotion from priest at Mag- 
dalen College to cardinal, and afterward to 
chaplain of King Henry VIII, arose out of his 

183 



REDEMPTION OF PRAYER-MEETING. 

promptness to seize an opportunity and carry 
out orders. He was the king's confidential mes- 
senger to Maximilian. Sent, on one occasion, 
with a message to the emperor, he took the 
ferry at Gravesend, went with horses to Dover, 
had quick passage to Calais, discharged his 
commission, immediately returned, and was in 
Richmond again on the fourth evening. Pre- 
senting himself to the king the following morn- 
ing, he was angrily asked why he had not set 
forth on his errand, when, in fact, he had al- 
ready accomplished it. 

To illustrate the quality of "Faithfulness" 
tell of the treacherous Athenians who, being 
sent to negotiate peace with Philip, accepted 
his bribes instead, thus enabling him the more 
successfully to prosecute the war against the 
Greeks. The messengers were untrue, and 
Philip swept down like a torrent, carrying all 
before him and meeting little resistance by the 
people, who believed that peace was being re- 
stored. Explain that in our day the messenger 
should not begin by affirming his authority, 

184 



PEAYEE-MEETING STUDIES. 

saying, "The Lord lias sent me, or told me thus 
and so." It should be left for those addressed 
to judge of that after hearing the message and 
observing the messenger. Such pretenses 
awaken suspicion rather than confidence. The 
Divine Spirit may be trusted to quicken the 
word lovingly given and, if there is need, to 
attest the messenger. 

At this point ask the people to bear witness 
to the results of faithful message bearing. 
Prayers for grace to mature the qualities men- 
tioned will lead the service to a spiritual climax 
and the hour will have been well spent. 

COMING TO THE THEONE. 

(Heb. 4:16, 10:20-22.) 

There are many thrones, mythical and real, 
of Deity and of men. In this great universe 
there must be one throne, central and supreme, 
upon which the perpetuity and glory of all other 
thrones depend. This throne Paul designates 
by a word which plainly shows that, to him, the 

185 



REDEMPTION OF PRAYER-MEETING. 

most vital thing about it is not its power or 
splendor, but that it is a "Throne of grace." 
This Throne was typified in olden time by 
the Mercy Seat which covered the ark. (Let 
some one describe it.) It was two and one-half 
cubits square and was thickly lined, inside and 
out, with pure gold. It was holy and no man 
was to touch it. Within it were the two plates 
of the Commandments, a golden vessel full of 
manna, and Aaron's rod, which budded. Di- 
rectly over the cover were two cherubs, facing 
each other and looking down into the ark, their 
wings being spread over the cover. It is to 
this that Psa. 91 : 1 refers when speaking of 
the Lord "sitting between the cherubim." It 
was from this spot that the voice of God went 
forth to Moses (Num. 7:39), and to Samuel 
(1 Sam. 3:3). Hence it was 

1. A place of communion with Jehovah. 

2. A place of judgment. 

3. A place of appeal in prayer. 

4. A place of divine pardon. 

All this is true of the "Throne of grace " 
186 



PEAYER-MEETING STUDIES. 

and more, for, first, unlike the ancient Mercy- 
seat, it has a permanent place of abode. The 
former was kept for a short time at Bethel. 
Then, until the Promised Land was reached, it 
remained at Gilgal. After entering Canaan, 
Shiloh was its resting-place, until the sons of 
Eli bore it into battle against the Philistines, 
who captured and placed it in their temple be- 
side the god Dagon. In the presence of it 
Dagon fell and was shattered. Later it was 
kept at Kiriath Jearim. Then David brought 
it to Jerusalem and established it on Mt. Zion. 
Pursued by Absalom, his son, he bore it with 
him to the brook of Kidron. Subsequently it 
was restored to Jerusalem, and finally Solomon 
gave it abode on Mt. Moriah. When Nebuchad- 
nezzar plundered the temple, he stripped it of 
its gold, and thereafter it was no longer known 
by the people. But the "Throne of Grace " 
stands forever and is not subject to such vicis- 
situdes. 

Further, whereas the Mercy-seat was ac- 
cessible only to the chief representative of the 

187 



EEDEMPTION OF PEAYEE-MEETING. 

people, the "Throne of Grace" is open to all, 
and "whosoever will may come." 

For nine hundred years the nearest any man 
could come to Grod was that typical throne, and 
even to it he came, so to speak, by proxy. But 
now, "The Spirit and the Bride say, Come." 

Suggestion: Hymns like "Sweet hour of 
prayer," "Just as I am," "Jesus, where'er 
Thy children meet," will be helpful. As an 
illustration of coming boldly, use the following: 
On pain of death, no person was to approach 
the Eoman emperor's tent in the night. A sol- 
dier was to be immediately executed for violat- 
ing this rule, for he approached the tent, late 
at night, with petition in hand. In his pavilion 
the emperor heard the commotion and cried out, 
saying, "If the petition be for himself, let him 
die ; if not, spare him. ' ' It was found that the 
brave man had come to pray for the life of two 
comrades who had been taken asleep on the 
watch. Thanks to his courageous approach of 
the emperor in behalf of others, he nobly for- 
gave them all. 

188 



PRAYER-MEETING STUDIES. 

MOSES' CHOICE. 
(Deut. 18:15; Heb. 11:24-26.) 

Suggestion: A useful prayer-meeting study 
may be developed from this subject. Have 
some one prepared to name the different offices 
in which Moses appeared. Or, appoint differ- 
ent persons to name one of these offices each, 
and, in one minute, define it by quoting the sa- 
cred record. As, for example: 

Poet, prophet, lawgiver, political economist, 
theologian, historian. The leader may show 
how, after all, the real greatness of the man 
appears in his choosing "afflictions with his 
people" in preference to all the emoluments of 
the court of Pharaoh. That choice was 

1. Unusual and strange. Few then or now 
would make it. Yet some do. Give in- 
stances. 

2. Vital. Behold the change it wrought in 
Moses' environment, associations, em- 
ployment, etc. 

3. Wise and wholesome. "He looked to the 
reward," foresaw good results. 

189 



REDEMPTION OF PRAYER-MEETING. 

4. Courageous nevertheless. 

Christianity is not an emaciated system of 
pious sentiment and song, never appealing to 
the sterner aspects of life, but rather a system 
of sacred obligations that mean service and con- 
flict and self-denial, which appeal to the heroic 
elements of the soul, thus developing courage 
and leadership. 

Illustration: In "The Redemption of David 
Corsen," by Doctor Charles Frederic Goss, 
David's former friends point out to him the 
losses, crosses, and humiliation it will mean 
to him to become a Christian. He admits it 
all and says he expects it, and then resolutely 
adds: "I have suffered the losses and crosses 
of doing wrong, and now I invite the losses and 
crosses of doing right." 

NOAH'S FAITH. 

"By faith Noah, being warned of God, of 
things not seen as yet, moved with fear, pre- 
pared an ark to the saving of his house, by 
which he condemned the world and became an 

190 



PRAYER-MEETING STUDIES. 

heir of righteousness which is by faith. ' ' (Heb. 
11:7.) 

Suggestion: Open with the singing of "My 
faith looks up to Thee," and close with "Faith 
of our fathers ! living still. ' ' 

1. Necessity of faith. "Without faith it is 
impossible to please God. ' ' (Heb. 11 : 6.) 

2. Scope of faith. i ' That He is and that He 
is a Rewarder." 

3. Foundation of faith. "Being warned 
of God" — not reason, tradition, philos- 
ophy, dreams, and visions, but the "Word. 

4. Work of faith. "Prepared an ark." 
Mere belief is often idle, faith never. 
Have people name things true faith will 
make men do. Nothing so essential, so 
real and great as the work of spiritual 
faith. Noah found it so. The work of 
his faith (ark) outlasted everything else. 

5. Reward of faith. "To the saving of his 
house." Own kindred first beneficiaries 
of his faith. "Come into the ark, thou 
and thy house." 

191 



REDEMPTION OF PRAYER-MEETING. 

Suggestion: Testimony: Let the people 
name some of the fruits they have plucked from 
the tree of Christian faith. Prayer: Ask God 
not to give you faith, but for grace to exercise 
the faith you have, and thus it will grow strong. 

THE PRAYER-MEETING WEIGHED IN A 
BALANCE. 

A service which makes such demands upon 
the time and thought of Christians as does the 
prayer-meeting should be able to point to a 
record of good accomplished in the past and 
give evidence of what it can and would do in 
the present. In this study we place its high 
demands upon one side of the scales and the 
considerations last mentioned on the other. 

First, What the prayer-meeting has wrought 
of lasting good. 

Here let the people speak of good they have 
themselves received, or seen or read about in 
others' lives. See also "The Prayer-meeting 
Idea," p. 16. 

192 



PRAYER-MEETING STUDIES. 

An interesting volume in a Sunday school 
library tells the story of little children holding 
a prayer-meeting under a tree to comfort one 
of their number who had lost her little brother. 
Reluctantly the father, not himself a Christian, 
gave his consent to let the little mourner at- 
tend the meeting. Inquisitively he followed 
and, hiding in the bushes near, listened to the 
children's prayers until his heart was melted 
and he became a willing soldier of the cross. 

Second, What can this service do to-day if 
given a fair chance? 

Questions like the following may here be 
introduced with profit: 

How may the prayer-meeting help the pas- 
tor? 

How may the prayer-meeting help the Sun- 
day school? 

How may the prayer-meeting help the cause 
of missions? 

How may the prayer-meeting help all the 
interests of the Church — the spiritual, social, 
and financial? (Or, how has it helped them?) 
13 193 



REDEMPTION OF PRAYER-MEETING. 

Conversely, let the representatives of these 
organizations within the Church tell how these 
departments can help the prayer-meeting. 
There are ways in which the Sunday school, 
the missionary organizations, the young peo- 
ple's society, and the Official Board can might- 
ily reinforce this service. Announce the nature 
of this particular meeting and possibly the 
speakers, and the attendance will be good. 

Should this outline offer more material than 
is needed for one meeting, it can easily be 
divided into two or more. 

CHARACTER STUDIES. 

Suggestion: A few general directions under 
the head of character studies may be of greater 
value than to present one such study fully 
worked out. Sermons and prayer-meeting talks 
of this sort are quite common. Care must be 
exercised to bring out such traits and events 
as will produce immediate spiritual results. 
The use of the plural in the following studies 

194 



PRAYER-MEETING STUDIES. 

does not mean that many characters, or even 
more than one, should be taken for one meet- 
ing. The leader will exercise his judgment as 
to this, and also in the selection of the char- 
acters to be considered. It will be well to make 
the assignment of these when there are several, 
or of the different traits when there is but one. 
Here is material for five attractive prayer- 
meetings : 

1. Persons outside of Biblical history whose 
lives were rich in moral import. 

2. Persons in Biblical history whose lives 
were rich in moral import. 

To avoid the trite and commonplace, 
the things desired may be brought out 
when assignments are made. One may 
be asked to name the noble qualities and 
another the weaker ones. One may de- 
scribe the subject's early life; another, 
the religious training; another, the life- 
work. 

3. Persons that have been an inspiration 
to me, and how. 

195 



EEDEMPTION OF PEAYEE-MEETING. 

4. Pastors who have been a help to me, 
and how. 

5. Great men and women of prayer. 

EELIGIOUS TEUTH IN ALLEGOEY. 

Suggestion: One or more of the following 
illustrations can be used in one meeting. Scrip- 
ture and other material can be supplied at 
will. A unique manner of using the incidents 
is to relate them and letting those present name 
the lessons taught, which then is written on 
the board where all may see and read. 

1. The Seductiveness of Sin. 

Lured by the inverted trees, sky, and land- 
scape, a bird flew into a lake and was drowned. 
The lofty, pure, and good are often seductively 
reflected by sin. All the glories of the upper 
world may appear inverted in evil, causing 
error to appear as nobler truth, disobedience 
as liberty, anger as indignation, tyranny as 
justice, skepticism as scholarship, doubt as in- 
telligence, bigotry as loyalty to truth, cowardice 

19G 






PRAYER-MEETING STUDIES. 

as humility, lack of decision as broadminded- 
ness and generous toleration. 

2. Perfect Obedience. 

This means to do what is recognized as right, 
whether the reason and wisdom of it can be 
seen or not. Obedience that demands perfect 
understanding is not perfect obedience. 

A man was hired to turn a grindstone. He 
turned it for an hour and then left it in dis- 
gust because no one came to grind anything. 
Another was hired, who turned and turned 
for hours, with no one near. When asked by 
his employer why he did this, he answered: 
"That is your business; you hired me and or- 
dered that I do it." "Stop turning,' ' said the 
employer; "I have been looking for a man who 
will literally carry out my orders that I may 
make him manager of my affairs, and you are 
my man." God does not ask us to perform 
senseless tasks, but He does sometimes test our 
obedience severely in order to promote us to 
higher assignments, if found worthy. 

197 



EEDEMPTION OF PRAYER-MEETING. 

3. The Cross Conspicuous. 

Rubens 's "Brazen Serpent," in the Na- 
tional Art Gallery of London, greatly magni- 
fies the misery of the dying, while the brazen 
serpent, God's instrument of rescue, is repre- 
sented as a minute thing in the distance. Not 
so Revelation. It sets forth sin and suffering 
only that the cross may be the more conspicu- 
ous. ' ' The law entered that sin might abound. ' ' 
The gospel entered that "where sin abounded 
grace might much more abound." 

4. Quiet Poiver. 

In Cambridge there lived a little old-fash- 
ioned clergyman whom no one cared to hear. 
He was old and a back number. One day a 
large number of students took a vote as to 
whom each one would call, before any other, 
to give counsel and prayer in the hour of death. 
Every student named the old clergyman. They 
did not care to hear him preach, but they knew 
the genuineness of his life and the power of 
his faith. 

198 



PRAYER-MEETING STUDIES. 

5. Divine Comfort. 

"As one whom his mother comf orteth. " 
(Isa. 66:13.) 

"O heart of mine, we shouldn't worry so ! 
What we have missed of calm we couldn't have, you know. 
What we've met of stormy pain, 
And of sorrow's driving rain, 
We can better meet again, 
If it blow. 

We have erred in that dark hour we have known, 
When the tears fell with the shower, all alone ! 
Were not shine and shower blent, 
As the gracious Master meant ? 
Let us temper our content 
With His own. 

For we know not every morrow can be sad ; 
So, forgetting all the sorrows we have had, 
Let us fold away our fears, 
And put by our foolish tears, 
And through all the coming years, 
Just be glad." 

6. The Heart in Prayer and Service. 
Joachim, the violinist, when, as a boy, asked 

by his mother what toy he wanted, requested 
a violin. Later he became famous for his ten- 
derness, as well as his musical accomplishment. 
A young lady once sang for him much out of 

199 



EEDEMPTION OF PRAYER-MEETING. 

tune and time. When corrected by her master, 
she said she would get a metronome to beat 
time for her. "No," replied Joachim, "you 
need go to no such trouble or expense. Rhythm 
and time must come from the heart and not 
from a machine. ' ' The pupil needed a musical 
soul, and the teacher could not give this to her. 
Every heart may be spiritually attuned for 
service and song, and unless it is, worship and 
service are as mechanical as the beat of the 
metronome. "The Lord looheth on the heart" 
(1 Sam. 16:7). David had it in his heart to 
build an house for the Lord (2 Chron. 6:7). 
"Making melody in your heart to the Lord" 
(Eph. 5:19). 

7. Christians the Salt of the Earth. 

Salt is preserving, seasoning, vitalizing, 
stimulating. When Mrs. McKinley, wife of the 
deceased President, lay in San Francisco at 
death's door, she was revived through the in- 
jection into a vein of a salt solution. It is 
said that this stimulated the heart, warmed and 

200 



PRATEE-MEETING STUDIES. 

made fluid the almost congealed blood, and en- 
ergized the corpuscles. 

Christianity should be so vital as to stir up 
the world's moral torpor, stimulate earnest 
thought upon the holy and wholesome, cause 
wide agitation of matters that pertain to the 
public weal, vitalize faith and moral convic- 
tion, inspire courage, thus preserving men from 
moral degeneracy, decay, and death. 

Suggestion: Make it plain that nothing else 
can do all this. Eefer to defunct nations who 
had not the salt of Christianity. 

8. Coming to Himself. 

In a sense an unchristian man is beside him- 
self. Like the prodigal, he needs to "come to 
himself. ' ' 

The story is told of a man in Geneva, New 
York, who worried about his business until he 
lost his mind, when the poor man wandered 
away from his home and was missed for two 
months. In Marion, Indiana, he came to him- 
self, learned where he was, and started for 

201 



EEDEMPTION OF PRAYER-MEETING. 

home. Penniless, haggard, and tattered, he 
arrived at last. Words can not describe the 
welcome that awaited him. 

Suggestion: Eead Luke 15:12-24, and let 
all take part in naming points of resemblance, 
beginning with, say, absorption in material 
things, resultant confusion, wandering away 
from home and friends, impoverishment, etc. 

Sing: "I am coming home," "Welcome 
for me," "Haven of rest." 

THE KIND OF MEN AND CHEISTIANS 
THE WOELD IS LOOKING FOR TO- 
DAY. 

Suggestion: The following or similar traits 
of the kind of men needed to-day may be dis- 
tributed privately, or at the door, or, better 
still, by mail. A personal communication from 
the pastor through the post is always appre- 
ciated, however small the message or request. 
First, the traits of needed men may be given 
in rapid succession; then those of needed Chris- 
tians. Ten minutes should suffice for this, when 

202 






PRAYER-MEETING STUDIES. 

the meeting may be given to prayer, testimony, 
and song, 

The World is Looking for Men 

— who can do things. 

— who never give up. 

— who can not be bought. 

— who see opportunities and seize them. 

— who never get into ruts. 

— who think much and say little. 

— who know their weak spot and guard it. 

— who are as good as their word. 

— who make every day count for something 

worth while. 
— who stand for a square deal for everybody. 
— who have initiative — can act without orders. 
— who know how to get happiness out of their 

work. 
— who place a value on themselves and never 

mark it down. 
— who know their place and keep it and enjoy it. 
— who get so much good out of life that they 

would not swap with a king. 
203 



REDEMPTION OF PRAYER-MEETING. 

— who profit by the mistakes of others. 

— who do not quake at sight of conflict or of 
competition. 

— who do to-day what possibly might wait until 
to-morrow. 

— who merit praise, but do not seek it or mur- 
mur if it does not come. 

— who can succeed in business without failing 
in religion, and vice versa. 

— who are real Christians, spiritually-minded 
men. 

The Wokld is Looking for Christians 

— who know what they believe. 
— who are not stingy. 
— who are saved and so alive. 
— who love children. 
— who venerate the aged. 
— who reverence the house of God. 
— who preach and practice perfect love. 
— who make it a point to welcome strangers 
in the church. 

204 



PRAYER-MEETING STUDIES. 

— who strive to lead men unto Christ, as well 

as into the Church. 
— who have as much interest in the Church as 

the pastor. 
— who do not attribute all their aches and colds 

to going to Church. 
— who are neither afraid nor ashamed to con- 
fess their Lord. 
— who love the mid-week service and will do 

anything to help it. 
— who never cause the pastor any worry, but 

make him glad he has them. 
— who are not of those who say, "The Church 

is right and good, but I will not join it." 
— who are known to be on the right side of all 

great moral questions. 
— who do not blame the pastor for not calling 

when he did not know that they were sick. 
— who do their duty to please the Christ, and 

not alone their pastor. 
— who will not lose the blessing of the sermon 

if it is followed by a collection. 
— who see more good to be thankful for than 

205 



EEDEMPTION OF PRAYER-MEETING. 

evil to lament over, but who ignore 

neither, 
—who know their Bibles well enough not to 

attribute, as one did, Sam Jones's slogan, 

"Quit your meanness," to St. Paul. 
— who are real men, flesh and bone Christians. 

THE KIND OF WOMEN THE WORLD IS 
LOOKING FOR TO-DAY. 

Suggestion: This study may be conducted in 
the same manner as the one preceding. See 
suggestions there. Impress the fact that there 
are many such women, and that the Church is 
producing more of them constantly. Mark, it 
is the Church that trains them. Characters like 
the following are not produced in any other 
institution. Useful women are found in schools, 
hospitals, charitable institutions, missions — 
thousands of them — and many thousands in the 
homes; but, wherever found, women with the 
qualities here named are the product of the 
Church of God. 

206 



PRAYER-MEETING STUDIES. 

The World is Looking for Women 

-who love children in the home. 

-who, with Mary, choose the better part and 
are happy Christians. 

-who do not regard their husbands as their 
sovereign lords. 

-who interest themselves in civic and govern- 
mental affairs, as did Deborah. 

-who, like Lydia, consecrate their needles to 
their Master's work in Ladies' Aids. 

-who sit at Jesus' feet, like Mary, but who 
also rise and serve, like Martha. 

-who use the gift of speech in prophecy, as 
did Hannah, Huldah, and Deborah. 

-who daily pray with Socrates of old, "0 God, 
make me beautiful within ! ' ' 

-who, with Sarah, have the patent of aris- 
tocracy from God Himself within the 
soul. 

-who, like Ruth, are industrious gleaners and, 
like her, too, are loyal unto God and His 
people, 

207 



REDEMPTION OF PRAYER-MEETING. 

— who aim to make the home the training-school 
for noble men and women. 

— who, with all their drudgery and toil, find 
time for self -improvement. 

— who will cheer moral chivalry in men more 
loudly than mere physical heroism. 

— who eschew masculinity and foster normal, 
cultured, consecrated femininity as their 
richest charm. 

— who have not crushed their gentler qualities 
through mannish independence. 

— who do not stay outside the Church because 
their husbands will not join, but bind 
them to the Church by their own affili- 
ation with it. 

— who have music in their souls and who sing, 
not only to amuse and entertain, but, 
like Miriam, to praise the Lord and in- 
spire mighty enterprises. 

— who aim, not to compete with men in business, 
but to care for self, unless willing to be 
the helpmates of men who are able and 
worthy to care for them. 
208 



PEAYEE-MEETING STUDIES. 

— who pray, as did Eebekah, whose prayer is 
the first recorded instance of woman's 
direct appeal to God, but who, unlike Ee- 
bekah, will not connive at deception in 
the home. 

— who depend not alone upon the Church or 
school for the moral training of the 
young, but, like Jochebed, do it them- 
selves. 

— who seek to gain whatever rights may be 
withheld as yet by spreading Christian- 
ity, as did the wives of Ethelbert and 
Clovis — prime movers in the conversion 
of the Anglo-Saxons and the Franks. 

— who, if they have time to spend outside the 
home, give it preferably to organizations 
that offer to self and others social, in- 
tellectual, and moral good combined, and 
not but one of these alone. 

PEAYEE-MEETING TOPICS. 

During July, August, and September, Eev. 
Joseph C. Nate, Jacksonville, Illinois, used a 
14 209 



REDEMPTION OF PRAYER-MEETING. 

neatly printed program of topics entitled, 
"Summer Pilgrimages with Jesus," or "The 
Gospel Out-of-doors," 

Foe July. 

God's Out of Doors. Ps. 19:1-6, 147:3, 4; 

Matt. 8 : 26-33. 
The Parables by the Sea. Mark 4:1-9; Matt. 

13. 
The Gospel of the Trees. 1 Chron. 16: 33, 34; 

Psa. 92:12. 
Highways and Harvests. Matt. 7 : 13, 14 ; John 

4:35; Isa. 35:7-10. 
Clouds, Storm, and Rainbow. Job 35 : 5 ; Psa. 

4:6; Gen. 9:8-17. 

Foe August. 

A Mountain-top Vision. Matt. 17 : 1-13 ; Mark 

9:2-13; Luke 9: 28-36. 
A Valley of Blessing. Psa. 23 ; John 10 : 11 ; 

Psa. 84:5,6. 
Plants in God 's Garden. Isa. 35 : 1-7. 
A Country Walk. Luke 24 : 13-35. 

210 



PRAYER-MEETING STUDIES. 

For September. 

A Fishing Excursion. John 21 : 1-24. 

Life-giving Waters. John 4:14; Ezek. 47: 
1-12; Rev. 7:16, 17. 

The Peaks of the Range. Matt. 4 : 8-11, 5 : 1-13 ; 
Mark 9:2; Luke 22:39-42. 

The Bright and Morning Star. Rev. 22 : 1-7 ; 
Num. 24:17; Dan. 2:44. 
Another program is entitled " Great Themes 

of Our Christian Faith." 

Reconsecration Service. Psa. 19. Memorize 
12-14. Theme: How have we kept our 
first, best vows to God? 

The Bible God's Word. Theme: Our habits of 
Bible study. How and how much has the 
Word helped us in our needs of life? 
2 Tim. 3 : 16 ; Deut. 30 : 11-14 ; Rom. 2 : 16. 

The Ten Commandments. Theme: Their ap- 
plication to our lives. Memorize in 
briefer form. Ex. 20 : 1-17. 

The Proverbs. The Proverbs which most ap- 
peal to us. 

211 



REDEMPTION OF PRAYER-MEETING. 

The First Psalm. Study and memorize. A 
certain prescription for happiness. 

The One Hundredth Psalm. Theme : The glad- 
ness and worship of service. Study and 
memorize. 

The Life of Our Lord. John 1 : 1-18. Circum- 
stances in the life of Jesus which give us 
help for walking in His steps. 

The Beatitudes. Matt. 5:1-12. Theme: The 
Master's "Blesseds" — are they ours? 
Study and memorize. 

The Lord's Prayer. Study and memorize as in 
Matt. 6 : 9-13. 

The Parables of Jesus. John 16 : 25. Question : 
"Which of the parables has helped me 
most? 

The Miracles of Jesus. John 20 : 30, 31. Ques- 
tion: Which of the miracles have im- 
pressed me most, and why? 

The Apostles. Luke 24:48; Acts 1:8, 22; 1 
Cor. 9:1; Eph. 4 : 11-16. Question : 
Memorize names of apostles. In what 
212 



PRAYER-MEETING STUDIES. 

things are we called to be their suc- 
cessors? 

Other Topics Used by Db. Nate. 

Studies in the Way of Life. 

The Christian and his Savior. 

The new Birth and the New Year — a New 

Year's study. John 3 : 1-17 ; Phil. 3 : 1-16. 
What Christ is to me. 1 Cor. 1:18-31; Gal. 

2:20. 
Giving Him pre-eminence. Col. 1 : 1-20 ; Matt. 

6:33. 
The Vine and the branches. John 15 : 1-16 ; 

Matt. 28:16-20. 

The Growth of the Christian. 

Thy Word. Psa. 119 ; Luke 4 : 16-20. 

The school of prayer. Luke 11 : 1-13 ; Eom. 8 : 

26-28. 
When alone with God. Mark 6 : 30-46 ; Job 33 : 

15, 16; Psa. 17:3, 42:8. 
The supreme test. Eph. 4:1-15; Matt. 5:48; 

1 John 3 : 1-3. 

213 



REDEMPTION OF PRAYER-MEETING. 

The Life of Sacrifice and Service. 

The constraint of the Cross. Luke 14 : 25-35 ; 

2 Cor. 5:14, 15. 
The gospel of Christian usefulness. Jas. 2; 

Matt. 7 : 24-29. 
The message of the Cross. Luke 15 : 1-7 ; 1 Cor. 

1:18; Acts 26: 15-18. 
A Man of Sorrows. Isa. 53 ; Mark 10 : 45 ; Phil. 

3:10. 
Sorrows turned into joy. John 16: 17-24; Psa. 

42. 

A YEAR'S CYCLE OF TOPICS. 

This cycle of one year's topics was ar- 
ranged by Rev. W. H. Geistweit, D. D., and is 
recommended by the Northern Baptist Conven- 
tion. The rearrangement by the author in 
groups will be found convenient. 

New Year. 

What Shall the Harvest Be? Matt. 9:36, 37, 
13:1-8, 18:23; Prov. 10:5. 
214 



PRAYER-MEETING STUDIES. 

Spiritual Awakening. 

"Revive Thy Work." Psa. 85:4-6; Isa. 57: 

15; Hab. 3:2. M. 
Preparations. 2 Chron. 14:2-4, 20:3-19; Mai. 

3:10; Acts 1:4, 12, 14. 
The Baptism of the Spirit. Zech. 4:6; Acts 

2:1-4. 
Witnessing. Acts 1 : 8, 4 : 20-29, 8:4; Mark 5 : 

19. 
How Can I Help a Work of Grace? Matt. 

25:14-20; Luke 12:48. 

Five Steps Leading Up to Easter. 

The Pathway to the Cross: The Last Supper. 

Luke 22 : 7-34 ; John 13 : 1-20. 
The Pathway to the Cross — Gethsemane. Luke 

22:39-53. 
The Pathway to the Cross : The Judgment Hall. 

John 18:12-40, 19:1-16. 
The Pathway to the Cross: Crucified — Dying. 

John 19 : 16-30. 

215 



REDEMPTION OF PRAYER-MEETING. 

The Pathway to Victory: The Resurrection. 
John 20:1-18; 1 Cor. 15:13-20, 53-58. 

NOW TO THE WoBK. 

When Duty Calls. Esther 4:13-17; Acts 20: 

17-27. 
The Test of the Spiritual Life. Matt. 7 : 16-20 ; 

Rom. 8:9, 10. 
What is the Business of the Church! Matt. 

28:19, 20. M. 

Relationships. 

Money and the Kingdom. Deut. 8:11-18; Hag. 

2:8; 1 Cor. 16:1, 2. 
The Temperance Issue. Prov. 20 : 1, 23 : 29, 30 ; 

Hab. 3:15; Eph. 5:18; 1 Cor. 6:10; 

Heb. 12:12, 13. 
The World. Matt. 12:50; Luke 2:30-32, 10: 

25-37. M. Acts 17:24-28; Rom. 1:14. 

Pateiotic. 

A Lesson for the Nations. Psa. 127 : 1. 
Jehoshaphat: A Foolish Alliance. 2 Chron. 

216 



PKAYER-MEETING STUDIES. 

18:19, 1:2; 1 John 2:15-17. See also 
''Patriotic Prayer-meeting," p. 163. 

Christian Sociology. 

In the World, Not of It. John 17; Jas. 1: 27. 
The Christian Home. 1 Sam. 1:24-28; Luke 

2:39, 40; 2 Tim. 1:5; Eph. 6:1-4. 
The Needs of Children (Sunday School). Isa. 

54:11; Matt. 19:13, 14.* 
The Christian in Society. Matt. 5 : 13-16, 13 : 

33; Phil. 2:15, 16. 
The Christian and the Church. Matt. 22 : 21 ; 

1 Tim. 2 : 1, 2. 

Prayer. 

Jesus ' Example in Prayer. Mark 1 : 35 ; Luke 

6:12, 9:28; John 6:15. 
The Reach of a Wonderful Prayer. Eph. 3: 

14-21. 

The Bible. 
The Complete Revelation, John 14 : 8, 9 ; Col. 
2:9; Heb. 1:1-4. 



* See also Sunday-School Prayer-meeting, page 149. 

217 



REDEMPTION OF PRAYER-MEETING. 

Why I Believe the Bible. 1 Cor. 2: 13; 2 Tim. 
3:16; 2 Peter 1:20, 21; Heb. 4:12. 

The Foundation of Faith. Matt. 16:13-19; 
Acts 4 : 12 ; Rom. 15 : 4 ; Eph. 2 : 20-22. 

Wonderful Words of Life — A Promise Meet- 
ing. Psa. 103:8-13; Isa. 26:3, 41:10; 
John 14:1, 2, 27. 

Miscellaneous. 

How Shall We Settle Troublesome Moral Ques- 
tions? Rom. 15:1-3, 14:16-21; 1 Cor. 
8:13, 10:31-33. 

The Supreme Gift. 1 Cor. 13 : 1-13. 

Caring for the Needy. Lev. 19 : 9, 10 ; Psa. 
41:1; Isa. 58:6-8. M. 

Vision and Preparation. Isa. 6 : 1-8. 

The Christian Horizon. Mark 16 : 15 ; Luke 1 : 
32, 33; Acts 1:8. M. 

For Whom Did Christ Die? John 3:16, 17; 
1 John 2: 2; Rom. 5:8; 1 Peter 3: 18. M. 

Abraham — The Worth of the Long Look. Heb. 
11:8-10, 13:14; 2 Cor. 5:1. 
218 



PRAYER-MEETING STUDIES. 

Moses — A Lesson from Mount Pisgah. Deut. 

3:23-27. 
Unnamed Earthen Vesels. 2 Cor. 4:7; Matt. 

10: 42; Luke 22: 9-13. 
The Reach of the Christ. Isa. 9:7; John 10: 

16; Isa. 42:4. M. 
The Method of Discipleship. Matt. 16: 24, 10: 

37-39. 
A Consistent Life. Jas. 2 : 14-26. M. 
Right Thinking. Psa. 119 : 113 ; Prov. 23 : 7, 8 ; 

Phil. 4:8. 
Abundant Grace. 2 Cor. 9 : 8, 12 : 9 ; Eph. 4:7; 

John 1 : 16. 
Songs in the Night. Isa. 30 : 29 ; Acts 16 : 25, 26. 
How Christ Came to Me. (Personal Experi- 
ence.) John 1 : 35-51, 4 : 7. 
Where Is Our Macedonia. Acts 16 : 9, 10 ; Eccl. 

9:10. M. 
Lest We Forget (Thanksgiving). Psa. 103. 

Thbee Steps to Cheistmas. 

Toward Bethlehem: The Prophet's Look. Isa. 
9:6, 7, 32:1, 60:1-3. 
219 



EEDEMPTION OF PRAYER-MEETING. 

Toward Bethlehem: The Eastern Watchers — 

Herod's Look. Matt. 2 : 1-8. 
< 4 Holy Night ! ' ' Luke 2 : 7-20 ; Matt. 2 : 9-13. 

The Last Prayer-meeting op the Year. 

Eternity— Where? Psa. 90. See also "New 
Year's Prayer-meeting," p. 129. 

Remarks: Other equally pertinent Scriptures 
may be substituted or added. Themes in 
the above cycle that lend themselves to 
missionary treatment are indicated by 
the letter "M." With a little applica- 
tion, a whole year's program can be ar- 
ranged from the above groups and the 
miscellaneous topics which accompany 
them. 

Other Miscellaneous Topics. 

Pastors who have helped me, and how? 
Why I attend the prayer-meeting. 

Why I am a (denomination). 

Books or periodicals that have helped me spir- 
itually. 

220 



PRAYEE-MEETING STUDIES. 

What does it mean to be a Christian? (Give 

definition.) 
Children and the Kingdom. 
Recent events with a moral. 
The Old Testament idea of the Kingdom of 

God. 
The New Testament idea of the Kingdom of 

God. 
The things our Church most needs just now. 
Great men and women of prayer. 
The saddest or gladdest thing in your life since 

the last meeting. 
Prophecies in the Old fulfilled in the New Dis- 
pensation. 
The Church of Heaven and Earth represented 

in miniature. Matt. 17. 
Toiling in vain. Luke 5. 
A good grip. Rev. 3 : 11, 2 : 25. 
The teachings of Jesus — as to God, Himself, 

the Kingdom, mankind, sin, salvation, 

discipleship, prayer. 
The model prayer. 
Righteousness in the business world. 

221 



EEDEMPTION OF PRAYER-MEETING. 

Christianity in business. 
A Christian's amusements. 
Christian sociability and social Christianity. 
What are we doing to make the world better? 
A tolerant Christian, a lukewarm Christian, a 
weak Christian. Give Bible examples. 



222 



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